I 

i 



Christian 



Belief and Life. 



by 



THE LIBRARY 
OF C ONGR ESS 

WASHINQTOW 



ANDREW P. PEABODY, D.D., LL.D., 

PROFESSOR OF CHRISTIAN MORALS IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY. 




V, '.'I--:" •. 



BOSTON: 
ROBERTS BROTHERS. 
i3 75 . 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1875, by 

ROBERTS BROTHERS, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



Cambridge : 
Press of John WHsoji and Son. 



PREFACE. 



This volume consists of Discourses delivered 1 
in the Chapel of Harvard University, and most' 
of them prepared for that purpose. As they were 
written without the remotest view to publication, 
the author has sometimes used a sentence from: 
one or another of them in books and articles that 
have already been issued from the press. In such 
cases it has not been thought desirable to omit' 
or alter the passages thus employed, though they 
would not have been so used had there been any 
expectation that the discourses from which they 
were taken would ever see the light in their 
original form. 



CONTENTS. 



Chak, Pagit. 

L Man's Need of a Divine Revelation - T 

H. Our Father 20 

III. Religious Reverence ....... 32 

IV. The Efficacy of Prayer . . . .. . . 46' 

V. Submission to the Divine Providence . 59 

VI. Jesus the Light of the World . . . 70 

VII. The Peace of Christ ....... 83 

VIII, Jesus Walking on the Sea 95 

IX, Christ in the Family .■«.,.'.■• . 108 

X. Jesus and the Common People. . . . 121 

XI, Christ's Temptation, Crucifixion, and> 

Resurrection . ......... .. 135 

XIL A Door in Heaven ........ 149 

XHI. Identity of the Earthly and the 

Heavenly Life ...... - 160 

XIV. The Lord's Supper ........ 169 

XY. The Worth of our Responsibilities . 180 

XVI. Christ's Yoke and Burden ..... 191 

XVH. The Discipline- of Life . . . .- . . 203 



vi CONTENTS. 

Chap. Page 

XVIII. Reasons for Unbelief 217 

XIX. The Holy Spirit 229 

XX. Clean Ways 240 

XXI. Conversation 253 

XXIL Hebrew, Greek, and Latin 272 

XXin. Preparation for the Future ..... 284 

XXIY. The Creator ......... - .. 299 

XXT. The Spirit in Man . . .. ... ..... 313 



CHRISTIAN BELIEF AND LIFE. 



I 

MAN'S NEED OF A DIVINE EEVELATION. 

" We are but of yesterday, and know nothing, because our days upon 
earth are a shadow." — Job viii. 9. 

T HAVE been alone on mountains, in deep glens, 
in dense forests, many leagues from human 
dwellings; but I have never felt so lonely as in 
the crowded streets of a great and strange city, 
where I was uncared for and unknown, — where I 
might have fallen in sudden death, and the ripple 
thus made in the eddying life around me would 
have been as transient as when a pebble is dropped 
into a river. A feeling like this cannot but come 
over us as dwellers in this crowded city of our 
God, this vast and multitudinous creation. What 
are we who are of yesterday, and to-morrow may 
be no more, in a universe swarming with unnum- 
bered and infinitely varied forms of life within, 
and still more, no doubt, beyond our sphere of 
vision? Were we more ignorant than we are, 



8 



MAN'S NEED OF 



were we acquainted with no world but our own, 
and in that with but a narrow range of beings and 
objects, religious faith and trust — no matter in 
whom or in what, in fetich, idol, many gods, or 
one God — would be very easy ; for the province 
of divine administration would not then seem too 
vast even for human cognizance : and when to 
such ignorance the rudiments of Christian truth 
are made known, the result is perfect confidence 
without the shadow of a doubt, attended by such 
manifestations of simple, earnest piety as have 
clothed many a lowly life in a peerless beauty of 
holiness, and irradiated many an humble death- 
bed with glory kindled from the Mountain of the 
Ascension. 

But we cannot shut out our superior knowl- 
edge ; for knowledge we term it, though it abuts 
upon an ignorance more crass and hopeless than 
the (so-called) ignorant are conscious of. These 
countless worlds that gem the night heavens, rank 
beyond rank, in realms of telescopic vision^ which 
even our figures cannot overtake, still less our 
thoughts conceive, — how do they belittle, nay, 
annihilate us, in our own self-estimate, when we 
reflect that should our earth, our system vanish, it 
would be but as when a leaf drops in a forest, and 
dwellers in far-off worlds would not even miss the 
wavelet of light that would be blotted out ! Then, 



A DIVINE REVELATION. 



9 



in the opposite direction, the microscope makes 
equally bewildering revelations, — organisms so 
minute that myriads might be covered by the 
hand, — each infinitesimal being, like us, endowed 
with its brief life ; each as well fitted as we are for 
its place and office in the creation ; and each, no 
doubt, capable, like us, of sentient enjoyment. 
"Wherein are we better than they? What can 
we claim or hope which might not be equally 
claimed or hoped for them ? Earthly being seems, 
indeed, to culminate in man ; but elsewhere in the 
universe, or even close around us, unseen, un- 
heard, may there not be an ascending scale of 
beings, to whose higher orders we are of as little 
significance as the animalcules on a fig-seed are 
to us? 

Such views may well give us a sense of lone- 
liness and helplessness. Power, infinite power, 
intelligent power, we must, indeed, own ; for a 
self-existing, self-organizing universe is more than 
absurd, — it is inconceivable. While our theories 
of the creation are at best unproved conjectures, 
comprehending only single sections of the phe- 
nomena which they profess to explain, they all 
send us back to the will, might, wisdom, of one 
great First Cause ; for the unnumbered relations 
and correspondences of the realms of nature, each 
with each and each with all, can no more have 
1* 



10 



MAN'S NEED OF 



been evolved from chance than chance can have 
grouped the forms and tints of the Sistine Ma- 
donna, or thrown into rhythmical order the letters 
of the Paradise Lost. The tokens of a creating, 
co-ordinating, governing intelligence cannot be 
ignored, and science is, though often uncon- 
sciously, belting the universe with inscriptions 
borrowed from the Hebrew seer, — "In the begin- 
ning God created the heavens and the earth," and 
" The Lord our God is one Lord." But can that 
Infinite Being stand in any definite relation to me, 
or I to him ? How can I promise myself his regard 
for me personally among innumerable beings and 
orders of beings, especially when, for aught I know 
to the contrary, notwithstanding man's earthly 
headship over inferior races, I may belong to one of 
the lower orders of the spiritual creation? Can 
my life be more than an air-bubble, floating awhile 
on the surface of the life-ocean, by the first rude 
impact to burst and vanish for ever ? Can there 
be providence, care, love, for me individually ? I 
may, I must admire, adore ; but can I pray ? and 
pray hopefully, believing that my supplication will 
be held in regard in the counsels of the Infinite 
Mind, — will procure for me deliverance, blessing, 
help, peace, joy? 

Here Nature gives me some analogies, indeed, 
which may buttress faith elsewhere derived, but 



A DIVINE REVELATION. 



11 



no certain response. In her majestic order I am 
inextricably involved. Her inexorable wheels may 
sustain me for a while, but only to crush me when 
I block their movement. And when they crush 
me, can there be aught of me left to live on ? Life 
is sweet, — I cannot but long for its continuance ; 
but my longing is not prophecy ; nor is there any 
answer in all nature to the heart's despairing cry, 
" If a man die, shall he live again ? J ' 

Philosophy argues the question, but in vain. 
The wisest of the ancients attempts a futile dem- 
onstration that the soul of man existed from a 
past eternity, and reasons thence that it will never 
cease to be ; but he, when he comes to die, begs 
his friends not to be too confident of immortality, 
so very unsubstantial at that critical moment seem 
to him the grounds on which he had based his 
hope. Another spins an equally flimsy fabric, 
deeming it necessary, however, to begin by elabo- 
rately proving that annihilation is no evil ; and 
he, when his daughter lies dead in Iris house, con- 
fesses that his reasonings fail to give him the 
slightest satisfaction or assurance. 

But one — one only — appears, in these centu- 
ries of human existence, who speaks of all these 
things as one who knows. He is the most lowly 
of the sons of men ; yet he talks of providence, 
of immortality, as God might talk, could his 



12 



MAN'S NEED OF 



voice come down to us from the eternal silence. 
He does not reason, but declares truths be- 
yond the range, above the scope of reasoning. 
Whence his assurance ? Whence the clearness of 
his convictions ? In outward seeming he is but an 
illiterate peasant, a rude provincial, remote from 
the great centres of intelligence, brought up 
among poor carpenters and fishermen ; yet said 
he, " Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my 
words shall not pass away." And they have not. 
Children learn them. Strong men are made 
strong by them. The afflicted find their only 
comfort in them. They are rehearsed in the ears 
of the dying. They are said in solemn triumph 
over the open grave. And what are they ? " The 
Father himself loveth you." " Every one that 
asketh receiveth." " In my Father's house are 
many mansions." "I go to prepare a place for 
you." " I will come again, and receive you unto 
myself." " I am the resurrection, and the life : 
he that belie veth in me, though he were dead, yet 
shall he live : and whosoever Jiveth, and believeth 
in me, shall never die." According to the testi- 
mony of those who lived with him, he accom- 
panied these words by works of power and love 
beyond man's scope, which, if performed, were 
nothing less than the seal of the infinite God on 
the truth he taught. According to that same 



A DIVINE REVELATION. 



13 



record, he came forth alive from his own sepul- 
chre, thus attesting the non-reality of death, — 
the continuity of life through the death-slumber. 

Shall I, can I believe this ? Why should I not ? 
It certainly is possible that God is my Father ; 
that he extends over me his careful providence ; 
that he will preserve my life when dust shall re- 
turn to dust. But it is improbable, you say. 
What is not improbable, prior to experience or 
proof? There was no anterior probability that I 
should be what I am ; that man should be what he 
is, — a thinking, reasoning being, capable of love, 
of duty, of hope. The order of nature might 
have seemed as perfect as it now is, had man 
never existed, or had he been endowed with an 
entirely different class of faculties from that which 
he possesses. 

But we do see in the whole universe an estab- 
lished relation of demand and supply. The 
ground thirsts ; the rain stanches its need. The 
plants droop under the scorching sun ; in the 
timely dew they lift themselves again. The young 
raven cries, and is fed. Man craves for an infinite 
love, yearns for an endless life. Is the order of 
nature at this point broken ? Here alone is there 
intense demand, and no supply ? If so, it can be 
from no lack of power in the Omnipotent. Look 
at the phenomena of the opening year. What 



14 



MAN'S NEED OF 



giant forces are heaving the teeming earth, push- 
ing up the grass-blades, pumping the sap into the 
late withered trees, clothing garden, field, and for- 
est in robes that grow greener and richer with 
every hour ! Oh ! 44 why should it be thought a 
thing incredible, that God should raise the dead ? " 

But if God is our Father, if he exercises a lov- 
ing providence over us, if he hears our prayers, if 
he has ordained for us a life beyond death, how 
shall we know it? Nature, as we have seen, is 
voiceless. Revelation alone can meet these desires 
of ours, — can answer these questions which every 
awakened consciousness must ask. Nor is there in 
revelation any thing intrinsically incredible. In- 
deed, if it be our only avenue to certain knowl- 
edge regarding providence and immortality, can 
we believe that this avenue would have been left 
for ever closed ? Is there any thing unnatural in 
direct communication from the Creator to crea- 
tures capable of knowing him, — -from the Father 
to children capable of loving him and of rejoicing 
in Ins love ? 

Is objection urged against revelation as opposed 
to the order of nature ? How much do we know 
of that order ? Are we in a position to pronounce 
such and such events to be inconsistent with it ? 
Probably many of us have encountered in our own 
experience, or through testimony which we could 



A DIVINE REVELATION. 



15 



not question, occurrences which we knew not how 
to include in the order of nature. I say not that 
they cannot and will not be so included, — I believe 
that they will be ; but the intrusion of events to 
us abnormal and unclassed on the field of our ex- 
perience ought to show us how narrow and inade- 
quate are our conceptions of the existing order of 
nature, and to rebuke the paltry dogmatism that 
professes to know all that it was ever possible for 
God to do. Indeed, we know not but that reve- 
lation may have its place in the predetermined 
and natural order of the spiritual universe, just as 
paroxysmal and transitional epochs have in that 
of the material universe. Nor need we believe 
this the less, on account of the throng and press 
of habitable worlds within our sphere of vision ; 
for there is no just ground for cavil in the alleged 
strangeness that our little planet should have been 
specially signalized as the scene of a divine reve- 
lation, with its attendant pageantry of prophecy, 
sign, and marvel. Who knows that God has not 
in like or analogous methods made his power and 
providence known in every part of the universe 
tenanted by living souls, — to every order of be- 
ings capable of worship, trust, and love? 

Meanwhile, leaving all other considerations 
aside, Jesus himself is our best proof of the 
divinity of the revelation which he gave, or, 



16 



MAN'S NEED OF 



rather, which he was, and is. The effort has been 
made by unbelievers and sceptics — and never 
more earnestly than in our own time — to bring 
him down to the level of ordinary humanity. 
His story has been pared and pruned of all that 
seems marvellous. The authorship of the gospels 
by their long-reputed authors has been discredited. 
The character of Jesus has been subjected to the 
most minute and searching criticism, — the lens 
of the microscope adjusted by no friendly hands. 
But let men do what they will, they cannot lower, 
or dwarf, or desecrate the revered form. That 
name still remains above every name, — if not by 
God's special gift, then by its own right and 
power, — by the grasp which it holds on the hom- 
age, gratitude, and love of mankind. His is the 
most potent spirit that ever dwelt on the earth. 
From the clay when he left his life-work to the 
charge of the eleven Galilean peasants, his has 
been the mightiest force at work in our world, 
from the very first " conquering and to conquer," 
so that within three centuries from his meeting the 
doom of a felon-slave, the cross — meant as the 
token of eternal infamy — outblazoned all the in- 
signia of title, power, and victory. His teachings 
underlie all our modern civilization, all progress, 
all philanthropy, all hope for the depressed, suf- 
fering, and sinning. There is not a maxim in 



A DIVINE REVELATION. 17 



the improved philosophy of life, of society, of 
commerce, of polity, of finance, which has not 
emanated from his gospel, and may not be retrans- 
lated — and for the better — into the very words 
that fell from his lips. Then, too, as for character, 
you could count on your fingers the greatly good 
men since his time who have not owed their ex- 
cellence to him ; while of those who, if crowned, 
would cast their crowns at his feet, and cry, 
" Thou alone art worthy," there has been a mul- 
titude of pure, holy, beneficent souls that no man 
can number. In fine, Jesus Christ, considered 
merely as to his character and influence, is not one 
of a class, first among his peers, — he is a class by 
himself; not unequalled, but unapproached ; not 
brightest among kindred stars, but sole sun of 
righteousness, making the stars grow pale in his 
light. Were I to approach him from without, 
merely as an impartial student of history, I am 
sure that I should see in him a being for whose 
upspringing no spiritual Darwinism, no develop- 
ment theory would enable me to account ; whom 
I could not co-ordinate with his time or his sur- 
roundings ; whom I should be constrained to 
regard as himself the most stupendous of mira- 
cles. 

He, then, in the transcendent beauty, glory, 
power of his spirit, is his own best witness that he 



18 



MAN'S NEED OF 



comes to me with the words of God, — with abso- 
lute and eternal truth. As I trace his way among 
men, my soul is suffused at every step by a sense 
of his blended meekness and might, majesty and 
mercy; I must confess with the Jewish ruler, 
" Thou art a teacher come from God ; " and as for 
his heavenly birth-song, his marvellous works, his 
resurrection and ascension, so far are they from, 
weakening my faith in the primitive records that 
relate them (which on merely critical grounds I 
have as good reason for believing to have been 
written by those friends of his whose names they 
bear as I have for believing the genuineness of any 
work three centuries old), that such events appear 
to me no more than a fitting exterior manifesta- 
tion for a spirit like his. It seems as natural that 
his voice should break his friend's death-slumber 
as that we should call our departed friends in 
vain, — as natural that he should rise from 
the sepulchre as that our dust should lie there 
undisturbed. 

Here, then, in him " who hath abolished death, 
and hath brought life and immortality to light," 
we have our sure resort and remedy under the 
depressing consciousness, of which our text gives 
us the formula, — " We are but of yesterday, and 
know nothing, because our days upon earth are 
a shadow." I can feel all this most keenly as an 



A DIVINE REVELATION. 



19 



earth-bound and grave-bound mortal, and yet, as 
taught by Jesus, I can say, — I am not lost, I am not 
forgotten, in the crowd of beings, in the crush of 
worlds. Thou, the Omnipotent, lovest me. Thou, 
who guidest Arcturus and Orion, art conversant 
with my humble interests and mean affairs. Thou, 
to whom worship flows from the morning and the 
evening star, hearest my prayer, my praise. Thou, 
who art the life of all that live, hast made me, in 
my littleness and lowliness, the partaker of thine 
own immortality. 



20 



OUR FATHER. 



n. 



OUR FATHER. 
" Our Father." — Matt. vi. 9. 

E all profess to believe in the fatherhood 



of God. Is it a real belief, inwardly recog- 
nized and heart-felt ? I apprehend that to many 
(so-called) Christians God is a chilly, dreary ab- 
straction, not a personal existence, — an article 
of a creed, not an omnipresent life. "We are 
wont to define the Deity, nominally by ascribing 
to him infinite attributes, virtually by denying to 
him all human attributes, and using words about 
him in a sense entirely different from their com- 
mon meaning. Thus, for instance, justice is uni- 
formly enumerated as among God's essential 
attributes ; yet a large portion of the Christian 
Church have for many centuries maintained that 
a single, momentary act of disobedience on the 
part of Adam has been punished in every one of 
the myriads of his posterity, the like of which 
were a man to do on a small scale, so far from 
calling him just, we should brand him as utterly 




OUR FATHER. 



21 



infamous. In like manner, the fatherhood of God 
is set down in all Christian creeds ; yet compara- 
tively few Christians have ventured to ascribe to 
him, in their utmost conceivable measure, those 
properties which make a human father the object, 
not merely of revereuce, but of tenderness and 
fondness, of unlimited confidence and intense 
affection. 

The appellative father, in its use in human fam- 
ilies, suggests no thought of rigidness or severity. 
It implies immeasurably more than a willingness to 
forgive and to benefit. It denotes an incessant 
outflow of genial feeling, a glow whose warmth is 
comfort and whose light is joy, a minute and ap- 
preciating sympathy with all that interests the 
child, a participation — not in mere form, but with 
a full heart — in the gay and festive aspects 
of young life, a relish for its laughter and its 
frolic. Does it seem to you irreverent to ascribe 
this type of fatherhood to God ? Whence comes 
it, if not from him ? Do you say that it belongs to 
human infirmity ? How is it, then, that the great- 
est, strongest, and best men have the profoundest 
sympathy with childhood? I am reminded of 
Luther, doing battle for the truth with all the 
powers of earth and hell, a man at whose mighty 
word civilized humanity was thrown into solution, 
to crystallize into new forms, one whose name will 



22 



OUR FATHER. 



gain fresh honors till the word of God — bound 
till he gave it free course — shall have emanci- 
pated the world from error and sin, — yet joining 
in the sports of his children with the keenest 
relish, and writing to them from the scenes of his 
fiercest conflicts letters brimful of fun and frolic, 
as of tenderness and love. So far is this from 
dwarfing the colossal magnificence of his charac- 
ter, as its portrait has come down to our times, 
that we recognize nothing in humanity more 
grand, more glorious, more godlike than these 
gentle, fond affections which make the strong 
man as a little child. 

I ask again, Whence comes this genial love ? 
Let the apostle answer : " Every good gift and 
every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down 
from the Father." But God gives nothing good 
which is not in himself, which flows not from his 
own nature. All that is lovely and genial in the 
parental relation has its source, its archetype in 
him, — else it could not be in man. 

It is worthy of emphatic notice that Christ 
drew his illustrations of God's fatherly love from 
scenes and incidents which bring into the strong- 
est prominence the festal, gleeful aspects of human 
love. Take for an example the parable of the 
Prodigal Son. Had Jesus intended to represent 
the cold, passionless God of the creeds and cate- 



OUR FATHER. 



23 



chisms, the father in the parable would have 
seated himself in awful dignity ; the returning son 
would have been compelled to crawl on his knees 
into his presence and to fall on his face before him, 
and a formal sentence of forgiveness would have 
been pronounced in frigid tones and carefully mea- 
sured words. How totally different the scene, — 
the father running out to meet the son, falling on 
his neck with kisses, instituting high festival on 
his reception, and making the whole house ring 
with music and dancing ! 

In the same spirit Jesus meets the demand of 
the apostles, " Show us the Father, and it suf- 
flceth us." " He that hath seen me hath seen the 
Father," was the reply. And what did his dis- 
ciples see in him? The perfection of virtue, 
indeed, but none of its austerity; courtesy, kind- 
ness, tenderness for all ; a countenance which 
won to his feet the despised and rejected of 
men ; a genial intercourse which gave him the 
place of a bosom friend in the hearts of all who 
were within the sphere of his intimacy ; a loving 
mien which made children climb his knees and 
nestle in his arms. This is the type of the divine 
fatherhood which he manifested, and which those 
who believe and rejoice in him ought to cherish 
for his sake, — a fatherhood comprehending all 
those benignant and loving traits which are beau- 



24 



OUR FATHER. 



tiful in the human father, and are only more fully 
and richly developed in him as he receives more 
of the grace of God, and becomes more fully im- 
bued with the spirit of Christ. 

Does this familiar conception of the fatherhood 
of God impair our reverence for him? Let the 
children of the most loving parents answer the 
question. Does the child lose reverence for his 
parents, because they are with him, heart and soul, 
in all that makes him happy ? Who are the 
parents that are most revered, — the austere 
and stern, who frown upon all buoyancy and 
gayety ; or those who enter gracefully and lov- 
ingly into whatever can give their children joy ? 

This view of the divine fatherhood has its mo- 
mentous bearings on the type of piety which we 
should cherish in ourselves and promote in others. 
I hardly need say how in many quarters the very 
word piety needs to be redeemed from sombre and 
repulsive associations. To many an ear it sounds 
like the knell of joy ; and not a few who think 
of piety as a necessary preparation for death, 
really regard it as the bane of life, associate it 
with sickness, sorrow, and the grave, and delib- 
erately or with instinctive dread postpone it as a 
personal concern till the evil days come and the 
pleasureless years draw nigh. But if God be 
indeed our Father in the only sense which we can 



OUR FATHER. 



25 



reasonably attach to the word, then piety toward 
him has rightfully none but happy associations. 
There can be nothing worth enjoying which it can 
call upon us to resign. In nothing is the father- 
hood of God more fully manifested than in the 
abundant provision of means of happiness, — of ob- 
jects whose prime or sole use and purpose is, to be 
enjoyed. Let us not forget that he has bestowed 
upon us the capacity of mirth, — the bodily powers 
and the mental proclivities whose natural exer- 
cise is exhilarating ; that the muscles which pro- 
duce the smile and the laugh are of his handiwork ; 
that buoyancy of spirit is not of forced growth, 
but the gift of nature, that is, of God; that the 
power of pleasurable sensation is lodged by him 
in every organ, faculty, and portion of our being, 
and seldom dislodged except by the violation 
of the laws of our being. How largely, too, has 
God enhanced our capacitv and deepened our 
sources of enjoyment by those relations of home 
and of society in which happiness is doubled be- 
cause divided, multiplied because shared! — rela- 
tions not, in any sense, of human device and 
ordinance, but existing by laws inherent in the na- 
tive constitution of the race, and thus attesting the 
loving fatherhood of its Creator. Then, again, 
how full is the universe around us of sights, 
sounds, and flavors, which have no meaning but 
2 



26 



OUR FATHER. 



the loving kindness of its Author! What are 
golden sunset clouds, moonlight nights, glowing 
landscapes, gorgeous bloom, sparkling waters, bird- 
songs, luscious fruits, but godsends of the Father's 
love ? The God of scholastic theology would have 
created a bleak, barren, utilitarian universe, fitted 
only for the ascetic, instead of one that crowds 
every avenue to the soul with sensations of glad- 
ness, and invites us ever, by the same winning 
voices and ministries, both to enjoy and to adore. 

How, then, is piety toward God to be mani- 
fested? The child of kind human parents shows 
his piety to them, not by despising their gifts and 
spurning the tokens of their love, but by enjoying 
all of them to the full, with his loving parents 
constantly in his thought, using their gifts as they 
would have them used, and deeming himself most 
happy when he can pursue his pleasure in their 
presence and with their participation. By parity 
of reason, the true child of God manifests his 
piety, not by dashing from him the cup of joy 
put full to his lips, but by making his joy grati- 
tude, his gladness thanksgiving, by using the 
world as not abusing it, by close adherence to the 
laws which always accompany the gifts and make 
them immeasurably the more precious, and by 
never losing thought of the benignant presence of 
him who has all of a Father's gladness in seeing 
his children happy. 



OUR FATHER. 



27 



Were these views made prominent in religions 
teaching, and especially in the religious culture of 
the young, religion would not be the unwelcome 
theme it now is to so many, nor would the offices 
of Christian worship be regarded with the indif- 
ference now so sadly prevalent. Were God really 
a Father in the inmost belief and habitual thought 
of those who call themselves Christians, there 
would be a conscious delight in the contemplation 
of his works as bearing his imprint, of the meth- 
ods of his loving providence as manifestations of 
his character, of the revelations which are his 
direct messages to his children ; and as for praise, 
adoration, and prayer, so far from seeming a task- 
work, they would be but the natural and spon- 
taneous outflow of feelings always craving 
expression and trembling on the brink of utter- 
ance. But so long as associations of awe and 
terror merge the divine fatherhood in the speech 
and writing, if not in the belief, of Christians ; 
so long as the religious life is represented as 
joyless self-denial, — few of the young and happy 
will even give sufficient heed to the matter to 
learn that piety is a fountain of perennial joy. In 
this regard Christians have borrowed, to the injury 
of their cause, one prominent feature of Judaism. 
Secrecy characterized the most sacred portion of 
the Hebrew ritual. The tabernacle was covered 



28 



OUR FATHER. 



on the outside with rams' skins and badgers' skins, 
and must have presented to the people a very 
unsightly aspect, while within, for the eyes of the 
priests alone, it gleamed with pure gold, was 
hung with rich folds of purple and scarlet drapery, 
and was filled with all things precious and beauti- 
ful. In like manner, the inner temple of Chris- 
tian faith and devotion is often belied by an 
exterior that gives no token of what it covers. In 
many a consecrated soul the beauty and joy of 
holiness are wholly veiled from outside view by a 
forced sanctimoniousness of mien, austerity of 
manner, and length of visage, as if the aim were 
to show the world how hard a service is that 
of Christ, and under how hard a master. Let 
those who rejoice in the divine fatherhood feel 
and show the full blessedness that belongs to the 
conscious children of God; let Religion put on 
her singing robes ; let her wear before all men the 
garments of praise and rejoicing which are hers of 
right, and hers alone; and her courts will no longer 
be deserted, nor will her solemn feasts lack glad 
and thankful guests. 

Yet another inference from the divine father- 
hood. Fatherhood implies distinctive love for the 
individual child, and thus, of necessity, a personal 
interest in the child's well or ill doing, right or 
wrong conduct, good or bad character. Have we 



OUE FATHER. 



29 



not been over-ready to eliminate this personal 
element from the divine fatherhood? We speak 
of the Almighty as emotionless. How do we 
know this ? If emotion be the result of weakness, 
the thought of it as applied to the Supreme Being 
would be blasphemjr. But is not the sea-swell 
type and token of the ocean's might and majesty ? 
And may not the pulse-beat of an affection intense 
and tender beyond our thought be even a more 
adequate and reverent conception of the Deity 
than the icy repose so generally associated with 
his image ? But if he thus loves us, he feels for 
us. We feed the fountain of his gladness by be- 
ing what he would have us be. I know that it is 
among the commonplaces of religious utterance, 
that no finite being can add to or take from the 
happiness of the Infinite Being. This no doubt is 
true as regards the happiness flowing directly from 
self-consciousness ; for it is approximately true 
even of excellently good men. Yet, as a nearer 
kindred of spirit with God only makes a good man 
more keenly sensitive to the moral qualities of 
those around him, — as no one was ever more sus- 
ceptible than Christ of joy or grief from good or 
evil in men's conduct and character, — I cannot 
but believe that there is what I can best term 
emotional recognition, on the part of the Eternal 
Father, of good or evil in his children ; that if 



30 



OUR FATHER. 



there be joy in heaven over the penitent sinner, 
he, chief of all, feels that joy ; that you and I 
give to or withhold from the Supreme Being con- 
scious satisfaction and gladness by our purity and 
sanctity of spirit and conduct, or by false, impure, 
and unworthy lives. Oh, did we thus feel our 
sonship, and bear about in our hearts our birth- 
bonds, could there be a more potent motive in the 
pursuit of good and the avoidance of evil ? If we 
know that we can, not in figure, but in fact, 
create new joy in heaven, can we suppress or 
scant that joy, when heaven rains down perpet- 
ual blessings, and beams upon us in unceasing 
benignity ? 

Finally, whether the child finds privilege and 
happiness or restraint and irksomeness in the hu- 
man father's well-ordered household, depends on 
his own choice, on his own character. With an 
unfilial spirit, with a temper out of harmony 
with the ways of the house, he may be wretched, 
while every thing is adapted to make him happy. 
He may seek elsewhere the imagined greater, 
but brief and ruinous, pleasure for which there is 
no provision at home. God's child can be happy 
in his universal house, only through love of the 
Father and conformity to the ways of the house. 
The fatherly and filial relation must be felt and 
recognized on both sides, in order for either to 



OUR FATHER. 



31 



derive pleasure or benefit from it. The child of 
God who has not a child's heart, must go to his 
own place, and that cannot be a place of privilege 
or joy. But he is self-banished, self-punished. 
He has forsaken his own mercies. It is not God's 
love that is withdrawn from him ; but he has 
taken himself from the shelter and joy of that 
love. Be this not our condemnation. But while 
in every voice of nature, providence, and Saviour, 
God is saying to each of us, " My child, give me 
thy heart," oh, let our hearts be early and ever 
his! 



32 RELIGIOUS REVERENCE. 



III. 

RELIGIOUS REVERENCE. 
"Hallowed be thy name.' 7 — Matt. vi. 9. 

T) Y a well-known Hebrew idiom, name stands 
for the person named, so that while this peti- 
tion deprecates all irreverent speech, it still more 
expresses the soul's desire to hallow with pro- 
foundest reverence the thought, the conception, 
the image of God, and, by parity of reason, what- 
ever is associated with him. Reverence might be 
deemed at once a necessity, a duty, and a privi- 
lege : a necessity, — for did not observation and 
experience teach the contrary, it would seem to 
us impossible to believe in the existence of a Being 
at once infinite and perfect, without the most 
lowly attitude of the soul in his felt presence ; a 
duty, — for if duty denotes that which is due, 
nothing else than this prostration of spirit can be 
due to a Being of boundless power and universal 
providence ; a privilege, — for the mind is never 
so truly great as when it owns a greatness beyond 



RELIGIOUS REVERENCE. 



33 



its measure, — the soul is never so large and lofty 
as when its conceptions more than fill, — crowd, 
stretch, exceed, transcend it. Yet in our time, 
men, more it is believed than ever before, forego 
this privilege, spurn this duty, sink below, while 
they imagine themselves rising above, this neces- 
sity. Why is this ? The reasons are more numer- 
ous than can be given in a single discourse ; but 
some of the more obvious may not unprofitably 
occupy our thoughts at- the present time. 

Technical theology, in attempting to delineate 
the divine attributes, has dwarfed them by using 
about them terms that describe human necessities 
and limitations, even human infirmities and pas- 
sions ; theologians have often so shaped their 
formal definitions of the Divine Being as to ex- 
clude all grand and soul-filling ideas concerning 
him ; and to those who contemplate him mainly 
under such definitions, piety itself becomes an 
internal formalism, stringent, indeed, but with 
nothing large or high in the thoughts that feed it 
or issue from it. Thus there is really nothing unnat- 
ural in the answer of an eminent theological pro- 
fessor of the last generation, who, when asked one 
day the subject of his lecture, replied, " Only the 
attributes of God." Polemic theology, also, by 
using all sorts of divine names and sacred words 
in its subtile and too frequently bitter strife, as 
2* c 



34 



RELIGIOUS REVERENCE. 



truly as the profane swearer, takes God's name in 
vain, and gradually loses all vestiges of reverence 
for the very conceptions which it defends as of 
vital moment. Fanatical devotion, too, merges 
reverence in familiarity, and in its gross anthro- 
pomorphism attributes to the Divine Being its own 
narrow prejudices, partialities, and pettinesses. 

But these are causes with which we have very 
little concern. It is more to our purpose to con- 
sider the irreverent tendencies imputed to the 
science of our time. Did I believe this imputation 
founded in the nature and necessities of science, 
my only alternative would be to denounce science 
or to abandon worship. But such tendencies I 
regard as only incidental and temporary. They 
undoubtedly cleave to certain scientific epochs. 
To man in a state of comparative ignorance dense 
clouds hang close above and around him. The 
awful mystery of the unexplored is at his fingers' 
ends. He must wonder, worship, adore — if noth- 
ing else — the occult forces of nature, irresistible 
but untraceable, omnipotent but unknowable. If 
on his darkness there alights from a revelation 
which he trusts the conception of one infinite, pure, 
merciful God, the love, piety, and reverence thus 
awakened will be sincere and fervent, fully ade- 
quate to guide him in duty, and to train him for 
the reception of the light that shall burst upon 



RELIGIOUS REVERENCE. 



35 



him when the mortal shall put on immortality. 
But when science clears away for man the nearer 
mists and the lower clouds, broacleDs his horizon 
and enlarges his firmament, reveals to him the 
reign of law in nature, enables him to trace causes 
and to foretell consequences, these new discov- 
eries occupy with cognizable truths the spaces 
which of late to him were full of the unseen, all- 
enveloping Divinity. He does not at once per- 
ceive that around and above this enlarged scope 
of his knowledge clouds and darkness still rest; 
that the realm of the unknown has only been 
magnified by the expansion of the realm of the 
known ; that every ascertained truth abuts upon 
causes and forces still wrapped in a mystery of 
which God is the only solution. Thus a tendency 
to irreverence always succeeds the occupancy of 
new fields by science, and lasts so long as science 
busies itself in taking possession of these fields, 
establishing its stations and its landmarks, verify- 
ing its conclusions, codifying its laws. The scien- 
tific mind has then its aphelion and its perigee. 
But when, grown familiar with its acquisitions, it 
again seeks to enlarge its domain, it finds itself 
again enveloped in the immense and the infinite, 
it again grows worshipful, and explores the un- 
known with unshodden feet and eyes suffused with 
reverent awe, until it has made new conquests, and 



36 



RELIGIOUS REVERENCE. 



cleared for itself a larger, higher range of vision 
than it had imagined before. But however far sci- 
ence may extend her sway; there still remains the 
First Cause of all causes, the efficient Force of all 
forces, the Source of all being, the creating, co- 
ordinating, governing Energy, which eludes her 
anal} r sis, yet exists as the necessary complement 
of her knowledge, — a knowledge which has its 
consummation and crown only in lowly and ador- 
ing faith. Reverence and science have no essen- 
tial antagonism, and cannot be permanently or 
long divorced. Though there may be, as I have 
said, certain stages of scientific research that are 
unfavorable to religious awe and devotion, the 
faith on which they rest has no ground for fear 
from the boldest speculations or the most icon- 
oclastic theories. 

I cannot, as a believer in God and in revelation, 
find aught to shake my faith or to impair my rev- 
erence in the hypotheses of Darwin and Huxley, 
even were they as firmly established as the law of 
gravitation. Let me say, in passing, that they 
leave even the Mosaic narrative of the creation 
unimpeached as a monument of true religious 
knowledge and a sublime expression of monothe- 
istic faith, which must have had its inspiration 
from on high ; for the object of the author of the 
Pentateuch was, obviously, not to write a scien- 



BELIGIOUS REVERENCE. 



37 



tific cosmogony, but to attach the name and image 
of God the Creator to the heavenly bodies and the 
objects in the animal and vegetable kingdoms 
which surrounding nations had deified, and thus 
to bar out the possibility of various prevailing 
forms of false worship, — an end which he still 
farther pursues by specifying and stamping with 
the .sure impress of humanity ' (wherever possi- 
ble, with the loathed brand of Cain) the invent- 
ors of arts and trades and the founders of races, 
who had also been deified. To return from this 
digression, if creation was development, it was 
none the less creation. If all forms of being 
have been evolved from primeval atoms by nat- 
ural laws, there still remains the question, 
Whence these laws ? whence these plastic ten- 
dencies ? For in the atoms or monads must have 
been lodged the germs of life in all its varied 
forms, of motion, instinct, intelligence, reason, 
will, philosophy, love, piety. While I see no 
adequate proof of this, and must therefore — 
till better advised — adhere to my old faith in 
specific creation, I cannot in thought take my 
stand beyond the aeons of development in the im- 
measurable past, and behold the nebulous mass 
whence should spring by successive evolutions all 
the beauty, harmony, and glory of the outward 
universe, all the great minds and noble souls 



38 



RELIGIOUS REVERENCE. 



that constitute a richer, grander universe, without 
feeling the shaping breath of the Infinite Spirit 
brooding over the weltering chaos, — without be- 
holding the Eternal Wisdom endowing these 
lifeless atoms with their plastic nisus, ordaining 
their courses, combinations, and issues, holding in 
prescience and purpose all that they were to be- 
come in the lapse of untold ages. If, where every 
thing is infinite, the distinction of more or less 
could be affirmed, I should even say that, did I see 
reason for resolving all specific creations into one, 
it would only give me a more vast and overwhelm- 
ing sense of the immeasurable power, wisdom, 
providence, love of the Creator. 

However the cause of irreverence of which I 
have been speaking may have its temporary effect 
in scientific circles, a cause of much wider influ- 
ence is to be found in the present transition stage 
of our political life. Under monarchical and aris- 
tocratic institutions there was a discipline of mind 
and character in the reverence for office, station, 
and rank, and for men as their representatives, and 
this constant submission and uplooking were fa- 
vorable to the reverential element in religion, 
though not, it may be, to the more intelligent and 
worthy forms of that sentiment. The awe thus 
inspired and cherished, though with slender foun- 
dation man ward, and greatly misdirected God- 



RELIGIOUS REVERENCE. 



39 



ward, was yet very far preferable to the spirit 
which fears neither God nor man. We have most 
happily escaped the thraldom of the Old World ; 
and the sporadic man-worship in which we in- 
dulged for the first half-century of our national 
life has worn itself out, as we have discovered 
that our idols, like those of Nebuchadnezzar's 
dream, if made in part of gold, are in very large 
part of miry clay. We have come to treat our great 
men as the Chinese treat their images, — cring- 
ing before them while they serve and satisfy us, 
scourging them when they fail to do our bidding. 
We are to grow, I trust, into that true loyal ty, 
that reverence for law as independent of its 
makers or its satellites, which alone can save, 
exalt, and glorify the state. But this reverence 
cannot subsist as an impersonal sentiment. It 
must mount to Him in whom law resides, from 
whom it flows, to whom it is amenable, whose 
omniscience alone can make it unerring, whose 
power must energize it in the human conscience 
and will, whose providence must annex to it the 
sanctions of a righteous retribution. So fast as 
we become a law-loving and law-abiding people 
(and on this condition depends not our ascen- 
dency, but our very existence as a nation), so fast 
shall we grow religiously reverent and God- 
fearing. 



40 



RELIGIOUS REVERENCE. 



Another reason for the decline of reverence 
among us has been the decline of parental author- 
ity and domestic discipline. The earthly family is 
the type of the spiritual family ; the human par- 
ent, of the heavenly Father. The lessons of faith 
and trust, submission and reverence, which are the 
law of the religious life, are best learned in the 
gentle authority and the genial confidence and 
obedience of the well-ordered household. So far 
as the divinely established order of the human 
family is reversed, and the freaks of childhood and 
the fancies of youth are permitted to set aside the 
prudence and wisdom of maturer years, parents 
obeying their children, and the elder serving the 
younger, — so far is the order of God's spiritual 
family subverted, — doubt precedes faith, pre- 
sumption outgrows reverence, free discussion is 
placed before worship, and religion loses its hold 
on the general mind. 

The parental relation in New England had, in 
former times, much of the prestige of the priestly 
office. The rites of domestic piety were observed 
much more generally than now ; and in every 
household not scandalously irreligious there was 
on Sunday an hour after the second church-service 
devoted to the religious instruction of the chil- 
dren, — a precious hour for the growth of rever- 
ence and piety, still held in hallowed memory by 



RELIGIOUS REVERENCE. 



41 



the fast vanishing generation of those who knew 
its blessedness. Our Sunday schools at first 
generally appropriated for themselves that hour, 
which is now so far secularized that they have 
been as generally driven back to an earlier portion 
of the sacred day. By invading the established, 
and in many families the only possible, season for 
domestic teaching, they undermined and have 
wellnigh destroyed the habit, and have thus sepa- 
rated parents and children in that very relation 
in which filial reverence had its surest growth. 
I prize Sunday schools as the best means of 
religious culture left to us, and I would do all in 
my power to strengthen their influence and to 
increase their capacity of usefulness. But their 
office is very much that of the ship that runs 
another down, and then picks up all that she can 
of the other's passengers and freight. I cannot 
but believe that if our Sunday schools, like the 
English, had been opened only for children of 
the unprivileged classes, and if the season once so 
sacred for the offices of home-piety had never 
been disturbed, we should have at this day been a 
more reverent people than we are. 

There is, also, a style of religious instruction for 
the young, which generates irreverence. I refer 
to the mania for explanation, which belittles all 
that is great and degrades all that is lofty, in the 



42 



RELIGIOUS REVERENCE. 



endeavor to make truths vast as immensity and 
eternity comprehensible by the youngest and 
feeblest mind. This bad work is often still far- 
ther vitiated by stale and paltry anecdotes and 
trivial illustrations, even by ghastly attempts at 
wit and humor, as if mirth were the only avenue 
to a child's mind, and jet that avenue were 
broad as the vestibule of an archangel's intel- 
lect. Clear and definite teaching as to all that he 
can comprehend is, indeed, due to the child. But 
it is also due to him, that he be trained in faith 
and reverence,- — that he learn that there are 
things which he cannot know now, but will know 
hereafter; things, too, into which his mind may 
grow and keep on growing, at least through the 
whole of his earthly life, without fully compre- 
hending them. Truths that embrace all space and 
time and being cannot be condensed within the 
scanty capacity of an infant mind, and when these 
great truths are so compressed and mutilated as to 
fit roundly and compactly into the child's intel- 
lect, and to make him imagine that he understands 
them, he outgrows them as his mind grows, and in 
his maturity throws them aside with other child- 
ish things. When knowledge and faith shall take 
their proper relative places in religious education, 
we may hope for a revival of the spirit of rev- 
erence. 



RELIGIOUS REVERENCE. 



43 



In considering the causes of the decline of rev- 
erence, I have left myself no space for urging upon 
you this primal obligation of the religious life. 
Yet what more can we need than the clear recog- 
nition of the being, presence, and providence of 
God ? If there is One, by and in whom alone I 
live ; to whom my whole consciousness lies open ; 
whose power and love throb alike in every puk\3 
of light from the far-off stars and in every beat of 
my own heart ; to whom there is no far nor near, 
no great nor small ; to whom my least needs are 
known and my least desires precious ; who is to 
me more than I can comprehend in the dearest 
names of human love, and is no less the tender and 
compassionate Father of myriads upon myriads in 
every realm of his universe, — to feel all this is to 
worship and adore, and to say in profoundest rev- 
erence, " Hallowed be thy name." 

There remains a single topic, to which in closing 
I must make the briefest possible, yet the most 
solemn and emphatic, reference. I said in the be- 
ginning of my discourse that the word name is but 
a Hebraism for Him who bears the name. Hebra- 
ism though it be in form, it is universal in its 
sense. It underlies the laws of thought and feel- 
ing. As we think in words, so words shape our 
thoughts. As the name of a person is treated, so 
is he regarded. Trifling with a name is disrespect 



44 



RELIGIOUS REVERENCE. 



to the person to whom it belongs. In the filial 

relation irreverence in speech and the correspond- 
ing deficiency in conduct uniformly coincide, the 
two being reciprocally cause and effect. The 
former, however, would of itself produce the lat- 
ter. Were a son who really honored his father and 
mother tempted by bad example to talk flippantly 
about them, and to call them by names unworthy 
so sacred a relation, irreverence in feeling and 
conduct would be the swift and inevitable conse- 
quence. The Hebrews dared not pronounce, even 
on solemn occasions or in reading the Scriptures, 
Jehovah, the most sacred name of God, — a reti- 
cence which must have made blasphemy the rarest 
of sins. Would that we might take a lesson from 
them as to the needless use of the divine name, 
even at sacred times and on sacred themes, much 
more as to its utterance on ordinary occasions ! 
The frivolous or profane use of that name cannot 
long coexist with a reverent spirit. The Being, 
invoked in mere wantonness, becomes belittled in 
thought. Profaneness of speech early and of 
necessity lapses into practical atheism; that is, into 
the loss of all serious convictions and impressions 
in every department of religious thought, and an 
incapacity of resorting to religious motives and 
sentiments for strength or for consolation in time 
of need. Profane speech, always vulgar, coarse, 



RELIGIOUS REVERENCE. 45 



and insolent, is a social offence against which no 
stress of indignation can be excessive. As lese- 
majesty against the Sovereign of the universe, it is 
the climax of human audacity. As a sin against 
one's own soul, I will not say that it is irrepara- 
ble ; for I do not believe that recuperative power 
is denied to any being under the reign of Infinite 
Love : but of all forms of guilt and wrong it has 
this bad pre-eminence, that it fouls the only foun- 
tain for its own cleansing, — desecrates the very 
shrine before which lowly, awe-stricken worship 
is its only token of repentance and condition of 
forgiveness. 



46 



THE EFFICACY OF PRAYER. 



IV. 



THE EFFICACY OF PRAYER. 



"What profit should we have, if we pray unto him ? " — Job xxi. 15. 



HERE appeared not long ago, under the sanc- 



tion of Professor Tyndall, a proposal to sub- 
ject the efficacy of prayer to the test of experiment. 
The article, I confess, seemed to me remarkable 
only for its entire misapprehension of the subject in 
all its relations and bearings, and a paper equally 
unphilosophical in behalf of any religious dogma 
would have subjected the writer and his cause to 
unmerciful ridicule. Yet so much has been said 
and written about this article, and I have been so 
often questioned concerning it by persons disposed 
to give it serious consideration, that I have reluc- 
tantly concluded that it was my duty to take notice 
of it in the pulpit. 

The proposal urged by the writer is to make 
trial of prayer in the wards of a hospital, or among 
the patients suffering under some prevalent disease, 
in very much the same way in which a new mode 
of medical treatment is tested, and to compare the 




THE EFFICACY OF PRAYER. 47 



death-rate, or the percentage of recovery, or the 
rapidity of convalescence among the persons spe- 
cially prayed for, with corresponding statistics 
among persons in like condition outside of the pale 
of special prayer. 

The first and most obvious answer to this pro- 
posal is, that it is in its very terms an absurdity, 
and that the experiment suggested by it is in the 
nature of things impossible. Prayer offered for the 
purpose of testing its efficacy would have none of 
the characteristics of prayer ; but were it classed 
where it belongs, it would be under the head of 
blasphemy, and among the things forbidden in 
the precept, " Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy 
God." Suppose a similar case in a human fam- 
ily. Suppose a boy making certain requests of his 
father, on a wager with another boy, to see how 
much more he can get by the asking than the other 
can get without asking. What filial element, think 
you, would there be in such an experiment ? So 
far from lending himself to it, the father's whole 
soul would rise up against it, and that not because 
of any human infirmity, but because of the most 
truly divine side of his nature ; because of the very 
fatherhood in which he is a type of the Supreme 
Father, and which in its love and benignity would 
be insulted and outraged by being made subject to 
such a test. In the experiment proposed, the men 



48 TEE EFFICACY OF PRAYER. 



who pray must either themselves lack faith, in 
which case their (so-called) prayer is no prayer; 
for common sense no less than holy writ tells us, 
that " he that cometh to God must believe that he 
is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently 
seek him;" or else, having faith, they must lack 
the singleness of purpose which is essential to 
prayer, — they must pray, not from love for the sick 
alone, but much more in the hope of sustaining 
their side of the dispute, — of making God the 
visible umpire in their favor in a controversy in 
which his providence is called in question, — a 
lower type of anthropomorphism than is consistent 
with intelligent and reverent theism. 

I would maintain, however, that though a for- 
mal experiment of this kind could not be made, a 
virtual experiment of the same kind is uncon- 
sciously going on all the time, and under circum- 
stances which, on admitted principles and by the 
recognized laws of causation, must constantly pro- 
duce a result in favor of prayer. There are sick 
persons who are, so to speak, surrounded by an 
atmosphere of prayer. The loving providence of 
God is owned in every change of their condition, 
hopeful or adverse, and the blessing of God is fer- 
vently implored in connection with every ministry 
employed for their relief. There are others who, 
in their sicknesses, are prayed for, if at all, not 



THE EFFICACY OF PRAYER. 



49 



constantly, nor by those in immediate relation with 
them, but only by the Church at large, in common 
with all that suffer, or, it may be, at rare intervals 
by some Christian friend. Now in the case of the 
former, the spirit of prayer is also a spirit of calm- 
ness, self-possession, love, tenderness, unceasing 
vigilance, by whose agency every available resource 
of care and skill is sought and employed. In the 
case of the latter, these qualities may be present, 
some or all ; but they are more likely to be want- 
ing than in the other case ; for among those who 
are not specially prayed for would be included 
almost all who are neglected, or cared for as a mere 
task-work, or attended, if assiduously, with per- 
petual trepidation and alarm. Thus, until some 
more faithful and kindly guardianship than Chris- 
tian love can be put into exercise, the statistics of 
prayer for the sick, could they be collected, would 
be eminently favorable to prayer. Among the 
wounded and maimed in our late war, how many 
lives rescued from the jaws of death are confessedly 
due to the tender care of the true heroes of that 
conflict, — those whose sole mission was to save, not 
to destroy! The statistics of their ministrations 
would show a striking comparison, or, I would 
rather say, contrast, in their favor, when placed 
beside those of the hospitals where there was equal 
skill, but not equal love. And think you not that 

3 D 



50 TEE EFFICACY OF PRATER, 



those loving hearts bore the nurslings of their char- 
ity in perpetual prayer to the Author of all good, 
and that it was the breath of their prayer that 
gave them wisdom, strength, patience, and hopeful- 
ness? 

What if prayer for the sick has no other efficacy 
than this ? Is it therefore offered in vain ? If it 
inspires, energizes, sustains the healers, is it not 
doubly efficacious? If a son could place himself 
in such a position with reference to his father, that, 
instead of receiving support or help directly from 
him, he was able by the inspiration of his sonship, 
by the power of the filial spirit in him, to sustain 
himself in difficult situations, and often to succeed 
and prosper where otherwise he must have failed, 
would not that father have done immeasurably 
better for his son and for all who could be profited 
by his son's influence, than he could possibly have 
done by the direct conferment of benefits on him 
or on them? Now, however it may be accounted 
for, there can be no doubt that prayer does give 
strength, patience, resource, love ; that the man 
who sincerely prays can do more and better than 
he who does not pray ; and that although prayer 
does not prevent calamity, sorrow, bereavement, 
yet through the energy which it inspires and the 
affection which it feeds, it is also richly fraught 
with temporal blessings. 



THE EFFICACY OF PRAYER. 



51 



Do you say that this is in accordance with natural 
laws ? This is precisely what I believe and main- 
tain. I believe that there is not a law of nature 
more simple, obvious, easy of comprehension and 
uniform in its operation, than that trust in Omnip- 
otence imparts strength, that repose on Infinite 
Love gives peace, that the singleness and pure- 
ness of heart which cannot but flow from prayer 
may make one master of circumstances to which 
he would else be a slave or a victim, and con- 
queror in the conflict in which he would otherwise 
succumb. In referring the efficacy of prayer to 
natural laws, we place it in the highest position of 
absolute certainty which it can hold ; for to him 
who believes in God natural laws are but the self- 
consistent and uniform administration of immuta- 
ble and infinite Wisdom and Love. Moral agency 
could be exercised, moral excellence matured, 
only in a law-governed universe. The direct and 
visible answer to prayer would unsettle human 
agency, discourage human activity, and convert 
the devout from vigorous workers to passive wait- 
ers on Providence. Were prayer for temporal 
blessings often so directly answered that it could 
be relied on with some good degree of probabil- 
ity, there would be a diminished diligence on the 
part of those who prayed, and, when the prayer 
was not answered, an uneasy apprehension that 



52 TEE EFFICACY OF PRATER. 



the calamity which might have been averted was 
a special token of the divine displeasure. 

Meanwhile, the believer in a God who is truly 
God must regard the laws of nature as not limits 
or hinderances to his mercy, but only as the ways 
in which he sees fit to bestow his benefits. Far 
behind the proximate causes which alone we can 
trace, there is ample scope for the exercise of a 
discretionary providence ; and if there be gifts or 
benefits, which, asked in prayer and owned in 
praise, will be substantial blessings, yet, received 
without prayer or praise, would be not goods, 
but evils, it is certainly reasonable to believe 
that in such cases prayer may have its specific 
answer. 

But it must be borne in mind that this specific 
answer is nowhere promised by our Saviour. It is 
of the Holy Spirit, of the inward strength and peace 
of which no sincere supplicant has ever failed, 
that Jesus says, " Every one that asketh, receiveth; 
and he that seeketh, findeth." Indeed, we have 
instances in the sacred record, in which prayer for 
deliverance from physical evil was answered only 
by the conferment of spiritual might. J esus him- 
self prayed that the cup might pass from him ; the 
answer was the " angel from heaven strengthening 
him," and the sublime peace and serene triumph 
of Calvary. St. Paul records his own prayer that 



TEE EFFICACY OF PRAYER. 53 



the " tliorn in the flesh" — evidently some bodily 
infirmity which threatened to destroy or impair his 
usefulness — might be taken from him; the answer 
was, " My grace is sufficient for thee ; for my 
strength is made perfect in weakness ; " and he 
thenceforward could say, " I will rather glory in 
my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest 
upon me." 

There is but one passage in the New Testament 
that would seem to cherish the belief in the spe- 
cific and calculable efficacy of prayer for the sick. 
It is in the Epistle of James : " Is any sick among 
you? Let him call for the elders of the church, 
and let them pray over him, anointing him with 
oil in the name of the Lord ; and the prayer of 
faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise 
him up, and if he have committed sins, they shall 
be forgiven him." I will not say that the genu- 
ineness of this epistle has been questioned ; for I 
do not question it. Whether it were written by 
James or by some other disciple, it is pre-emi- 
nently apostolic and Christian, and I have not the 
slightest doubt that it came from some one of 
those who were most intimately conversant with 
the mind of Christ. But there are several things 
that ought to be said about the passage that I have 
quoted. 

1. The assertion is by no means as strong in 



54 



TEE EFFICACY OF PRAYER. 



the original as in the translation. Shall implies 
certainty ; while the words are simply in the com- 
mon form of the future, ivill save, will raise him up, 
— a form which often denotes not assurance, but 
merely hope, as when we say, " This will do you 
good," meaning, " I hope it will." 

2. I am by no means certain that the words 
used by St. James have any reference at all to the 
restoration of bodily health. The word rendered 
save is almost always used in the New Testament 
in a spiritual, sense ; the word rendered raise up 
is often so used ; and as they both stand in close 
connection with the forgiveness of sins, we may 
easily understand the passage as expressing the 
hope that through the prayer of faith the sick per- 
son ma} 7 " be led to spiritual salvation, raised to a 
participation in the life over which death has no 
power, and brought into that penitent and recon- 
ciled condition of soul in which his sins will be 
forgiven. This view is confirmed by what fol- 
lows, in illustration of the tendency of a living faith 
to awaken or revive faith in those who lack it, 
and, I think, with reference to what has just been 
said of the renovating power of the prayer of 
faith by the bedside of the sick. " Brethren, if any 
of you do err from the truth, and one convert him, 
let him know that he which converteth a sinner 
from the error of his ways shall save his soul from 



THE EFFICACY OF PRAYER. 



55 



death (that same word save again, and is it not in 
the same sense?) and shall hide a multitude of 
sins." 

3. If this exposition, which seems to me sound 
and satisfying, be not admitted, we may suppose 
that there was reference to the exertion of extraor- 
dinary gifts of healing, which, it is believed by 
many, were bestowed and exercised in the primi- 
tive Church, while peculiar manifestations of the 
divine power were needed for the defence and 
propagation of the infant faith. 

I cannot then regard this passage of St. James 
as affording any ground for the expectation of a 
direct and distinctly recognizable answer to prayer 
for the sick, in the restoration of bodily health, or 
as authorizing objectors in charging upon Chris- 
tianity or its records whatever of falseness and 
absurdity there may be in such an expectation ; 
though, in the sense in which I understand it, 
it certainly prescribes and encourages prayer for 
and with the sick, that the afflictive visitation of 
Providence may be the means of spiritual benefit, 
whether in life or in death. 

Let us now consider what, as Christians, and 
on the authority of our Divine Master and of 
those personally conversant with his teachings, we 
may affirm and expect as to the efficacy of prayer. 

In the first place, we have no reason to believe 



56 



THE EFFICACY OF PRATER. 



that prayer for spiritual guidance and blessing 
ever fails of efficacy. There is here, indeed, no 
possibility of collecting statistics ; for such prayer 
is of necessity offered in secret, and public or 
social prayer, so far from being its criterion, may 
be either its vehicle or its substitute. But we do 
not find that praying men and women complain 
that in this respect their prayers are not an- 
swered, or desist from praying because it does 
them no good. Nor have we any ground for be- 
lieving that men sincerely pray and sin at the same 
time. On the other hand, did we have reason to 
suppose that a man was constant and earnest in 
prayer, we should expect to see in his life the 
tokens of superior excellence. There can be no 
question that, were prayer abolished, there would 
be an immediate deterioration of character. The 
Titanic strength of the earth-born and earth- 
grovelling would be but a poor substitute for 
the fire from heaven. 

In the next place, there are hardly any temporal 
blessings or advantages — not even health and 
length of days for one's self or for others — that are 
not visibly contingent in a greater or less degree on 
character; and if prayer at once intenerates, sweet- 
ens, energizes, and elevates character, so that in 
this sense he who asks always receives, then are 
such temporal benefits as flow more or less directly 



THE EFFICACY OF PRAYER. 57 



from character as truly answers to prayer, as if 
they were bestowed immediately from heaven, — 
with this important difference in their favor, that 
they give man the happiness of being not only the 
recipient, but the creator, of the goods he enjoys, 
and not only the well-wisher, but the actual bene- 
factor, of those for whom he intercedes. 

There still remain blessings, exemptions, deliv- 
erances, not contingent on causes under our con- 
trol. As to these no intelligent believer in God 
can imagine that they occur by the inevitable action 
of automatic forces. Though we see only the 
wheels, we doubt not that the Living Spirit is in 
the wheels. Wisdom and mercy guide them. By 
them God raises men up and brings them low, kills 
and restores, confers manifest good and inflicts 
seeming evil, with reference, we cannot doubt, to 
the needs of those thus disciplined, and with a view 
to their highest and eternal benefit. Here, though 
we may not fix upon single events or blessings, and 
say, 44 This I shall obtain if I pray for it," or 44 This 
I have obtained by praying for it," we cannot rea- 
sonably doubt that the prayers of his children are 
recognized in the providence of God. If the objec- 
tion be raised that the preordination of the course 
of events precludes the efficacy of prayer, we may 
reply, that there can be no preordination without 
foreknowledge, and that in the divine purposes 
3* 



58 



THE EFFICACY OF PRAYER. 



the foreknowledge of human piety may have its 
part, no less than the foreknowledge of human 
industry and thrift. 

We have, then, reason to " pray always, with all 
prayer and supplication." We need never fear 
that our prayer will return to us void. That a 
specific petition will be granted, it were arrogant 
for us ever to assert with confidence ; for to main- 
tain that it is best for ourselves that it be granted, 
is an assumption of omniscience. But prayer can 
never fail to fit us to utilize all that God gives to 
its utmost capacity, and to make privation or 
calamity equally the medium of his love and the 
nourishment of our faith, trust, and piety. 



DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 



59 



V. 

SUBMISSION TO THE DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 

" The cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it t" — 
John xviii. 11. 

TT is too much the habit of the Christian pulpit 
to treat of resignation to the divine will only 
under the shadow of recent death or calamity ; and 
such resignation is too often regarded as the special 
duty of certain emergencies, rather than as one due 
from all of us at not infrequent intervals, and from 
some of us every day of our lives. It is not by 
any means those alone who wear the badge of 
recent sorrow, or whom the world reckons among 
the afflicted, that need to take upon their lips and 
into their hearts the words of our text. Grief long 
outlasts its tokens, and presses heavily on many 
souls that give no sign. The great sorrows of life 
are often most severely felt after they seem obso- 
lete. There are bereavements of which the lone- 
liness, the desolation is but imperfectly realized 
while the flow of sympathy is fresh and full, but 



60 



SUBMISSION TO THE 



rests with a deepening shadow thenceonward 
through life. 

Then, too, there are disappointments and fail- 
ures, perhaps early; perhaps to other eyes com- 
pensated by successes that seem more than their 
equivalent ; perhaps such as it would be unmanly 
to reveal, — which yet make life other than we had 
planned or hoped, and which never cease to be 
regretted. I am inclined to think that, could we 
look into one another's inmost experiences, we 
should be amazed at the number of those who have 
failed of what they had most craved, and in so- 
ciety, employment, reputation, occupy a position 
not of their own first choice, — a place, it may 
be, not lower, yet to their thinking less desirable 
than that toward which their earliest aspirations 
and aims were directed. In fine, submission, in 
some sort, to the inevitable, to what we would 
have shunned if we could, is the necessity of us 
all. 

The first step to brave endurance of what can- 
not be evaded or surmounted is fatalism, in the 
true sense of the word ; that is, the acknowledg- 
ment of fate in lieu of chance or blind destiny. 
Fate literally means that which is spoken, a de- 
cree, a mandate of sovereign authority from which 
there is no appeal. Let this be distinctly recog- 
nized, — let it be felt that the events which we 



DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 



61 



would have had otherwise came from a supreme 
will not to he arraigned, still less to be set aside, 
and that all future external events will come to us 
from that same supreme will, — there is strength, 
there is courage in this faith. It enables us to do 
and dare to the utmost. Thus fatalism has made 
brave soldiers, heroic sufferers. It has inspired 
with desperate valor the forlorn hope of the Moslem 
armies. In the worst days of the Roman empire it 
strung the hardy sinews of those noble Stoics who 
withstood surrounding corruption, and paid with 
their lives the price of their sublime virtue. All 
else was subject to irresistible fate ; their souls 
alone were in their own power, and these they 
were determined at all hazards to keep loyal to 
truth and right. There is no chapter of the 
world's moral history that awakens more intense 
and admiring interest than this. Yet on one side 
it is unspeakably sad ; for they resigned themselves 
to a fate which they often despised. The decree 
of the Eternal was not to them of necessity the 
will of infinite wisdom, but fully as often that of 
arbitrary caprice. How scanty was their reverence 
for the arbiters of their destiny may appear from 
the well-known saying of one of their own poets, 
" The victorious cause pleased the gods ; the van- 
quished, Cato." 

Philosophical fatalism gives, as I have said, 



62 



SUBMISSION TO TEE 



strength, but not peace or hope. It sets the 
man on his feet, erect and firm ; but it does not 
place the everlasting arms beneath him. It is 
instructive and edifying to read alternately the 
Stoics and St. Paul, and to contrast their magnani- 
mous, but grim and stern, resignation with the 
jubilant tones in which, a hundred times over, and 
in an endless diversity of gladsome rhythm, he re- 
peats the sentiment contained in those words, " As 
sorrowful, yet always rejoicing." 

What, now, is Christian resignation ? We sub- 
mit, like the Stoics, to the inevitable. We ac- 
knowledge the irreversible decrees of a higher 
power, under which events have occurred, and 
will yet occur, far otherwise than we would have 
planned them. But for us, instead of arbitrary 
fate, is the cup — symbol of refreshment — which 
the Father — our Father, who can will only our 
good — has not wrathfully forced upon us, but min- 
gled specially for our benefit, and so given to us. 
Our fate, then, is providence, — care, kind provi- 
sion, fatherly, and therefore salutary, discipline. 
Moreover, with the veil of death uplifted, we are 
permitted to extend our view to the resurrection- 
life ; we cannot doubt that God's loving provi- 
dence reaches out into the eternity fathomed by 
his thought alone ; and if there be events which 
can have only a sad aspect in this world, it may be 



DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 



63 



that they are among the essential factors of char- 
acter, and thus of our enduring happiness, so that 
our wound-marks may be glory-marks in heaven. 

In this interpretation of earthly events we are 
guided even more by the life than by the words of 
Jesus. In him we have a perpetual illustration of 
the truth that "whom the Lord loveth he chast- 
eneth." What life was ever so full as his of lowly 
and sad experiences, from his birth in the manger 
to the long, wear}^, bitter agony and ignominy of 
the cross ? Yet from this pilgrimage of thankless 
toil and hopeless suffering, from this scorn, con- 
tumely, and outrage, has sprung the name above 
every name ; on this foundation rests the throne 
before which every knee shall bow, — the growing 
kingship over myriads in earth and heaven, — the 
dominion to which there shall be neither limit nor 
end. This — his glory — he promises, in their 
respective measures, to all who follow him in trial 
and in suffering. 

Let us now take the attitude in which we can 
look hopefully on such earthly events as might else 
give us discouragement or dismay. 

The fatherhood of God puts us on the footing 
of children, not only as to his love and protection, 
but equally as to our own knowledge and judg- 
ment. Must not we be mere children in our dis- 
cernment of the purposes and consequences of 



64 



SUBMISSION TO TEE 



events ? Are we not more ignorant of the details 
of our life beyond death than our infant children 
are of the conditions of manhood and woman- 
hood ? If the heavenly life is to be development, 
must not our highest development here be less 
than infantile compared with what we are to be ? 
You have encountered, my friend, experiences 
which, you say to yourself, cannot by any possi- 
bility be beneficial. Did you not have the same 
opinion, when you were a child, about rules, pro- 
hibitions, " commands, requirements, refusals, of 
your very wise and kind parents? Were there 
not times when you were absolutely certain that 
they were in the wrong, and that you knew better 
than they ? Yet these, perhaps, are the very par- 
ticulars in which you now most clearly and thank- 
fully recognize their wisdom, and have copied it, 
if you have children of your own, in your plans for 
their good. 

Meanwhile, whatever other purpose such expe- 
riences may serve, they are of unspeakable worth 
in the discipline of your faith and trust. Could 
you understand all, what room were there, or what 
necessity for faith ? But faith is a tonic to the 
whole spiritual nature, — an unfailing source of 
health and vigor, and equally of love, praise, and 
worship. Nor can it be that we shall ever out- 
grow our need of faith : for there will ever be in 



DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 



65 



the divine administration mysteries, if no longer 
painful, yet impenetrable, — sealed books, of which 
no man in heaven any more than on earth can 
loose the seal ; and the very faith which has here 
its frequent baptism of sorrow, may in realms of 
unclouded joy still precede our knowledge, sustain 
our reverence, and deepen our adoration. 

But things look so confused and tangled here, 
often so planless, often so needless, often so pre- 
cisely what in our best judgment they ought not 
to be, often without any relieving or hopeful 
aspect which by the utmost ingenuity we can dis- 
cern or imagine. Were they meant to look other- 
wise here? May we not be looking at them on 
the wrong side ? and may they not on the right 
side present only symmetry and beauty ? Suppose 
you had one of those magnificent tapestries from 
the cartoons of Eaphael — miracles of genius and 
art as they are — laid before you on the reverse 
side, what would you see ? Not even the faintest 
outlines of figures, — a confused medley of threads 
and colors ; hues so mixed as in some spots to 
look mean and muddy ; threads that could not 
have been woven in a more disorderly jumble 
had there been, a loom in chaos, and had Erebus 
thrown the shuttle. But turn the canvas, and you 
will see that there was not a thread that could 
have been omitted or differently placed ; not a tint 

E 



66 



SUBMISSION TO TEE 



which would not have been heightened or attenu- 
ated for the worse ; not a trait wanting or super- 
fluous in the picture, in which you recognize less 
the grandeur of human art than archetypes of 
beauty that have their eternal seat in the beauty- 
breathing spirit of the Supreme Creator. The 
web of human fortunes is woven for eternity. 
Here we see only the reverse side ; and no wonder 
is it if we cannot trace its symmetry, its beauty of 
outline, its harmony of colors. Yet there may be 
not a thread, not a tint in which we shall not dis- 
cern the hand of the Divine Weaver, when we 
shall be on the right side of the canvas. 

Indeed, we sometimes get a right-side view in 
this life, if there be indeed in our souls a hopeful 
beginning of the heavenly life ; and especially is 
this the case, as in the lapse of years we approach 
the period of clear vision. Not a few of our heav- 
iest trials and severest sorrows have become our 
blessings, and we have rejoiced in the very events 
that had most grieved us. What seemed evils 
have opened unexpected avenues to higher good. 
Loss has been the visible means of a more than 
preponderant gain. Disappointment has given our 
energies a worthier direction or a more fruitful 
field. From inevitable changes which had at the 
time no hopeful aspect, have come opportunities 
which we would on no account have missed, 



DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 



67 



yet which could have been made availing for us in 
no other way. In our bereavements, and in losses 
that admitted of no earthly compensation, some of 
us, I trust, have been conscious of an inward 
growth, a peaceful and reconciled spirit, a fellow- 
ship with the family of the redeemed, a nearness 
to heaven, and a fulness of immortal hope, in which 
we have been constrained to own that the bread of 
affliction has been to us the bread of life, the cup of 
sorrow the cup of salvation. Do there yet remain 
griefs in which we can trace neither earthly compen- 
sation nor spiritual blessing ? With these it can be 
only a question of time. It is all one continuous life, 
the earthly and the heavenly. The compensation 
which we cannot realize here may be none the 
less real there. Even the submissive waiting, 
where we cannot see and know the good that shall 
spring from seeming evil, may in itself be an 
unspeakable blessing, in attaching our spirits by 
stronger bonds of loving trust to Him who is the 
sours chief good, in unearthing our hopes and 
affections, and thus preparing them to be trans- 
planted to the 

*' Everlasting gardens 
Where angels walk, and seraphs are the wardens ; 
Where every flower escaped through death's dark portal 
Becomes immortal." 

I have spoken of resignation as a passive spirit- 



68 



SUBMISSION TO TEE 



ual grace. It is not wholly so. It ought to be an 
inspirer of activity and energy in our life-work. 
By the very events by which God hedges in, he 
marks out our way. By limiting, he directs our 
aims. By removing some objects of pursuit, he 
places others in clearer view. By giving us expe- 
rience of the frailty of our hold on aught that can 
change and perish, he invites our undivided and 
strenuous endeavor for those attainments which 
bear the seal and warrant of his own eternity. The 
voice that comes to us from him in vicissitude and 
loss is, " Arise ye and depart ; for this is not your 
rest." Much of what we have desired in this world 
has eluded our quest, and is gone beyond our reach. 
Shall we not, then, concentrate our efforts on those 
inward gifts and graces which, once ours, can cease 
to be ours only by our own supineness or sin ? 
Many of those whose lives were blended with our 
own have passed on before us. Why, then, should we 
seek the living among the dead, and not rather fol- 
low them to the realm of undying life, with our ear- 
nest aspiration and with all our spiritual industry, 
that we may on our side of the death-river hold not 
unequal pace with them, and may not find ourselves 
so very far behind them when we meet again ? 

Let me, in conclusion, advert to one point on 
which a very few words will suffice. Our resigna- 
tion, in order to be availing whether for peace or 



DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 



69 



for strength, must be entire. There must be no 
uneasy self-reproach for what has taken place, no 
backward looking as if we could have shunned or 
averted the loss, disappointment, or sorrow under 
which we are suffering. True, there is hardly any 
event in the divine providence, in which there is 
not a commingling of human agency ; and there is 
often the agonizing thought, " Had I only done 
otherwise, all this might not have been." The only 
question is, 'Had you right purposes ? Did you do 
the best you knew ? If not, penitence should come 
before resignation, and you should bear bravely 
what you suffer as the adequate, kind, and healing 
retribution of your wrong-doing. But if your con- 
science is clear, — if what you regret came by no 
fault of your own, then it is the Lord's doing, and 
it is yours to submit in trust and hope. True, had 
you known what you know now, you would have 
done very differently. But you did not know; you 
could not know. Yours is not the gift of prophecy. 
Had you this gift, it would, indeed, seem a pre- 
cious prophylactic ; but it might shield } t ou from the 
very dews and rains which God means for his rich- 
est harvest-work in you. Take, then, as from 
him the discipline avhich he alone appoints. Im- 
agine not that you have helped fill the cup ; but 
receive it as mingled in wise and provident love, 
and given you expressly by the Father. 



70 JESUS THE LIGHT OF THE WOULD. 



HE day of the year on which our Saviour was 



bom is entirely unknown. When it was 
first attempted to fix the date, different traditions 
of equal claims to authenticity assigned several 
different days, in January, April, and May. We 
have no trace of the celebration of the twentj T -fifth 
of December till the fourth century, when a Pagan 
festival was Christianized for this purpose, with an 
appropriateness which only surrounds the observ- 
ance with richer and more sacred associations than 
could attach themselves even to a birthday. This 
was the clay of the Roman feast of the " Birth of 
the Sun." For several successive months, reaching 
each day a lower meridian altitude, and describing 
a briefer circuit than the preceding day, the sun 
had been withdrawing its vivhying, fertilizing rays, 
till the whole earth seemed sinking into ,the em- 
brace of frost and night. But, the solstice passed, 



VI. 



JESUS THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 



(CHRISTMAS.) 



" I am the light of the world." — John viii. 12. 




JESUS THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 



71 



the sun climbs ever higher, and moves in an ever 
longer path, extending its sway, increasing its tri- 
umphs, till the morning meets the evening twilight, 
and the lord of day, conqueror and sovereign, looks 
down on a subject world. Thus had man reached 
his winter-solstice of ignorance and of guilt, — 
darkness covered the earth, and gross darkness the 
nations, when there arose upon the desolation and 
death-shadow of a godless world the sun which 
shall mount ever higher, and describe an ever- 
lengthening course in the heavens, till there shall 
be no winter and no night, and the words of the 
Hebrew seer, " The Lord shall be to thee an ever- 
lasting light, and thy God thy glory," shall be ful- 
filled for all mankind. This symbolic reference of 
the feast of the Nativity is recognized in the oldest 
Christmas hymn extant, by Prudentius, of the 
fourth century, — a hymn which, literally trans- 
lated, begins in this wise : " Why does the re- 
turning sun now desert his narrow orbit ? Is not 
Christ born upon the earth, who extends the tract 
of light ? How fleeting the joy which the hurry- 
ing day yielded ! How, as it shortened apace, was 
its torch hardly lighted before it was quenched ! 
Let the sky glow with gladness, let the exulting 
earth rejoice, now that the daybeams again, step by 
step, scale their former height." 

This symbolism places the birth of Christ where 



72 JESUS THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 



it belongs in the order and course of nature, at the 
turning-point of human history. It recognizes him 
as in a sole and unapproached sense the light of 
the world. I most of all rejoice in the festival as 
recalling us especially to this one essential aspect 
of our Saviour's mission and character. There was 
no need of a feast of the sun ; for so long as its 
disc was daily seen in the firmament, none could 
mistake the source of light. But suppose that the 
sun had not appeared for many centuries, and its 
light-beams had been treasured for us as its calo- 
rific rays have been, and were dispensed for our 
use through inferior luminaries, it would be hard 
to keep up the popular faith in the sun. In like 
manner, we are in danger of losing our reverence 
for Christ, not indeed because he is blotted out 
from the upper heavens open to our loving faith, 
but because the treasured daybeams of the Sun of 
Righteousness reach us through so many and diverse 
receptacles which they have filled, while his earthly 
life lies in the dim distance of far-off antiquity. 

Says one, " Christianity is true, indeed, but its 
truths are self-evident. They reveal themselves 
to consciousness ; they are verified by experience ; 
they are written in the heart of man. I believe 
them, not because they were uttered eighteen hun- 
dred years ago, but because they have the irrepres- 
sible and spontaneous testimony of my own nature.' ' 



JESUS THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 73 



I reply : You are conscious of the circulation of the 
blood, — you feel it as you lay your hand upon 
your heart, your fingers upon your wrist. But 
before Harvey announced that circulation, it was 
no less real, yet was not an object of consciousness 
even to the most acute physiologist. It is one 
thing to discover, quite another thing to recognize 
and verify, the facts of consciousness. If the truths 
of Christianity are self-evident, how is it that they 
formed no part of any man's consciousness till the 
advent of Christ? How is it that they are not 
springing up to-day in the consciousness of astute 
and speculative men in China and in India ? How 
is it that the only regions in which this conscious- 
ness is attained are those in which the words of 
Jesus are familiarly known, and that the very men 
who profess to have this consciousness indepen- 
dently of Christianity have, without a single excep- 
tion, been trained in the familiar knowledge of the 
evangelic record ? 

Says another, " The human mind reaches not its 
full development in any one individual or age. 
The discoveries of one century are axioms for the 
next. The child begins where the father leaves 
off. Christianity marks the highest religious de- 
velopment of Christ's own age, and exhibits the 
ripened product of the religious wisdom of the 
preceding ages. He was the representative relig- 
4 



74 JESUS THE LIGHT OF THE WOULD. 



ious genius of his times, yet only their natural 
growth ; and as he exceeded all that went before 
him, there will come after him those greater than 
he." I ask in reply : Where was the heritage to 
which he succeeded ? Was it in his own nation ? 
In the pitiful drivellings or the fine-spun subtleties 
of the Rabbies, of both whose folly and whose 
wisdom we have ample records ? Or was it in the 
more cultivated nations of classic fame ? Many of 
you are familiar with the Greek and Roman 
authors before, at, and after the Christian era. 
Do you find in them the remotest approach to 
Christianity, — the faintest vestiges of u religious 
development that had its fitting consummation in 
the gospel? Virgil, Horace, and Ovid flourished 
in the generation preceding that of Christ's ad- 
vent. Do they indicate an advanced stage of 
moral and religious attainment? If Christ and 
those who wrote concerning him be left out of the 
question, is there a fragment of the literature of 
the Augustan or the next succeeding age that 
indicates assured certainty or mature wisdom as 
to the great questions appertaining to man's nat- 
ure, duty, and destiny? The truly thoughtful 
writers of those times are evidently groping in 
palpable darkness, though yearning for light; 
while the greater part of the literature of that 
day betrays a moral culture beneath that of the 



JESUS THE LIGHT OF THE WOULD. 75 

very lowest strata of society in Christendom. 
Moreover, if Christ's teachings marked a stage in 
the natural development of religious thought, how 
is it that the greater than Christ is yet to come ? 
Why have these centuries rolled on without pro- 
ducing him ? Why is it that, as yet, the wisest 
and best men have been his followers, that none 
have outgrown him, and that those who have most 
outgrown their fellows have still ascribed to him 
all that they have and are? 

But it may be asked, " Why is it necessary to 
canvass or to assert Christ's personal claims, 
when it is with the truth, not with its author or 
revealer, that we are chiefly concerned ? The 
light is equally benignant and guiding, however 
kindled, or through whatever medium derived." 
I -answer, that it does us good to thank and to 
love Christ. God has bestowed upon us no other 
gift so precious as the capacity of loving ; and 
while he first of all claims our love, so far is he 
from exhausting it, that none have so much love 
for others as those who love him most fervently, 
while none love him so fervently as those who are 
the most full of gratitude, kindness, compassion, 
to all above, around, beneath them. God is wont 
to bestow both gifts and givers. He might feed 
us with manna from heaven, and clothe us, as 
he clothes beast and bird, from the vestry of his 



76 JESUS TEE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 



own careful providence. But he has employed for 
these ends the ministry of our parents during the 
many years for which we could take no adequate 
thought for ourselves, and this, no doubt, that by 
filial affection our whole being should be refined 
and exalted, and that through the parents whom 
we have seen we should be led to the Father 
whom we have not seen. In like manner, he 
feeds us with the bread of heaven and clothes us 
with the robe of righteousness, not — as he might 
— without a mediator, but through Jesus Christ, 
that the love of Christ may give an else unattain- 
able sweetness and grace to the character, and 
that through this love we may be drawn into ever 
more intimate and genial heart-communion with 
the Father. Therefore, while we never forget 
that Christ is the Incarnate Love of God, we deem 
it our privilege and our joy to trace back to the 
manger of Bethlehem the daybeams that light up 
for us the wa}^ of duty, that transfigure trial and 
grief, that rest on the valley of the death-shadow, 
that suffuse lowly penitence with immortal hope, 
that reveal to us in the ever nearer future the 
mansions of the Father's house where the holy 
dead of our homes await us, — where he in whom 
the whole family of the dead and the living is 
made one, prepares our welcome. What pure and 
blessed hope is there which we owe not to his 



JESUS THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 77 

ministry ? What source of enduring joy is there 
that flows not from or through him ? What cup 
of gladness is there mingled for us by his and our 
Father, into which he has not poured the sweet 
infusion of his love ? What tribute of praise can 
we offer to the Most High, in which the Son's name 
is not fitly blended with the Father's ? 

While there is hardly any expression of grati- 
tude, reverence, or admiration that could be 
misapplied if applied to Christ, we deem him 
pre-eminently the Light of the world, because he 
is the very truth he reveals, and there is much of 
that truth which becomes to us wid, realized, 
available, only in his person. I grant that the 
attributes of God may be enunciated, demon- 
strated, believed, without express reference to 
Christ, yet not, as it seems to me, clearly and sat- 
isfactorily, without light derived directly or indi- 
rectly from him. God in nature is infinite beyond 
our thought. Clouds and darkness are about his 
throne. His judgments are a great deep ; his 
ways, past our finding out. God in providence 
is shrouded in frequent mystery. His purposes 
reach out on either hand to a past and a future 
eternity, and the focus from which they may be 
beheld and recognized lies, oftener than not, be- 
hind or beyond the field of our vision. But God 
in Christ we can approach at once with filial rev- 



78 JESUS TEE LIGHT OF TEE WORLD. 



erence and with brotherly intimacy. What of God 
"we can see in human form, and that only, we can 
comprehend and feel, take up into our own con- 
sciousness, recognize from our own experience, 
realize with growing fulness as the image we con- 
template shapes itself more and more in our own 
characters. As we behold God in Christ, he is no 
longer merely the Creator, Sovereign, Judge, but 
equally the Joy-giver, the close and loving Friend, 
the Father, as near to us as if we were the sole 
objects of his care. We ascribe to him, as we 
come to him through Christ, those attributes of 
tenderness, of spiritual loveliness and beauty, 
which endear the Saviour to our familiar confi- 
dence and affection, — which, were he on earth, 
would win us to his presence, and draw forth for 
his ear all our wants, fears, sorrows, hopes, aspi- 
rations. 

As regards duty, also, what law can take the 
place to us of the living law in him, — the beauty 
of holiness as it glows in his entire walk on earth 
and intercourse with men? It must be remem- 
bered that before his advent the passive virtues 
had no honor, some of them not even a name, 
others a bad name ; that he could express the idea 
of humility only by a circumlocution ; that the 
meek endurance of injury had seemed inglorious 
even to the wisest and best ; that in this whole. 



JESUS THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 79 



region of character there were valleys to be ex- 
alted, and mountains of pride, self-sufriciene}^ and 
arrogance to be brought low ; that the entire 
moral scale was to be reversed, the first to be 
made last and the last first. All this Jesus has 
effected, not merely or chiefly by precept, but by a 
glorious greatness of spirit and character, which 
none could steadfastly behold — nay, not even as 
on the cross he met a doom of servile ignominy — 
and not own it as divine. The old and vicious 
moral standard still has its strong grasp on our 
lower natures, and would re-establish itself even 
in Christendom, did we not look to Jesus, and be- 
hold ever anew in him the peerless beauty of 
humility, the majesty of meekness, the transcend- 
ent greatness of forbearance and forgiveness. 

As regards immortality, too, in our quiet and 
prosperous seasons, we delight to speculate on the 
future ; we throw out our unbuttressed bridge 
over the abyss, and see not how perilously it 
hangs in mid-air, how slight a breath may sweep it 
away. But in our times of peril and agony, by 
the death-bed, by the grave-side ; when our own 
lives are in jeopardy; when we begin to number our 
few remaining years, and feel that we are far down 
the westward declivity of our brief passage from 
death to death, — we find support, consolation, 
peace, assured hope, only when we behold the 



80 JESUS THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 



eternal life made manifest, — when we hear those 
words which shall echo from grave to grave till 
the last of the dying shall have put on immor- 
tality, "I am the Resurrection and the Life," — 
when we see the Crucified coming forth new-born 
from the sepulchre, captivity led captive, death 
swallowed up in victory. 

But time fails me for a theme so vast ; for what 
tongue or thought can exhaust the fulness of mean- 
ing in those words, " I am the light of the world"? 
Let us rather recur, as this festival invites us, in 
thankful memory, to the rising of the everlasting 
light. We go in thought to the hill-country about 
Bethlehem. There sit the simple shepherds, per- 
haps beguiling the night-watches by anticipations 
of the speedy coming of him the signs of whose 
near approach had for years loomed above the 
horizon of every devout Hebrew. Little think 
they that they shall be the first to welcome him. 
" He will come," they say, " in pomp and power, 
will restore the throne of David, and wield the 
sceptre of Judah. Our Rabbies will hail his ad- 
vent ; our priests will throw wide the temple-gates, 
and swing their censers high as he crosses the 
threshold. With song and shout, with trumpet and 
sound of cornet, will the sacred court ring as he, 
by right of a God-given priesthood, approaches the 
altar. We, when he summons us, will rejoice to 



JESUS TEE LIGHT OF TEE WORLD. 81 



be his servants ; and when he leads the host of 
Israel to put to flight the army of our alien usurp- 
ers, we will drop the crook, gird on the sword, and 
follow him to victory, that we may win some hum- 
ble trophy of his triumph, and feed on the crumbs 
of his coronation-feast." While they thus com- 
mune, the heavens are kindled with a glory and 
effulgence unknown before. The brow of night is 
suffused with the dawn of God's long-promised 
day of redemption. The harps of heaven charm 
the awed shepherds into silence. Angel voices 
chant, not of earthly grandeur, embattled hosts, 
fields of slaughter, and garments rolled in blood, but 
" Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, 
good-will among men." Then comes the com- 
mand that they go to Bethlehem, and there, by 
the side of the manger, do homage to their Prince 
and Saviour. 

What a-blending of the Son of God and the Son 
of Man is here ! On the one hand, worshipping 
angels, when God " bringeth the first-begotten into 
the world," celestial music borne on the night-air 
over the hills of Judea ; on the other, a peasant 
mother, a cattle-stall for a cradle, lowly shepherds 
the sole witnesses of the advent of him who is to 
be "a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." 
To the Son of God all heaven bears testimony ; the 
very birth-scene of the Son of Man typifies the cold 

4 F 



82 JESUS THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 



reception, the weary, suffering pilgrimage, the scorn 
and contumely that await him. Yet from that hour 
was the heart of winter broken. Then commenced 
the growth of humanity's long year, from the dreary 
solstice never to return, to that other solstice fore- 
told in holy prophecy, when in the midsummer of 
universal righteousness there shall be perpetual 
bloom and un withering verdure, — the earth an 
Eden whose sun shall no more go down ; for the 
glory of God shall lighten it, and the Lamb is the 
light thereof. 



THE PEACE OF CHRIST. 



83 



VII. 

THE PEACE OF CHRIST. 
"My peace I give unto you." — John xiv. 27. 

TN the towns and cities of southern Italy, where 
the days are generally sunny and the nights 
serene, the poorer people live almost wholly in the 
open air ; cook and eat in front of their houses, 
hold social gatherings there, rest, and often sleep 
there ; and there are no people in the world that 
seern to enjoy life more. Their houses are dark, 
damp, with stone or earthen floors, squalid, dirty. 
No wonder that the outside of such houses should 
be preferred to the inside. But once in a while 
comes a sirocco, which drives them all within doors ; 
and that must be horrible, with the slimy walls, 
the stifling air, the fetid stench, and just light 
enough to make darkness visible. How after a 
few hours' incarceration must they loathe their 
homes (if it be not sacrilege so to term them), and 
with what alacrity must they resume their street- 
life when the storm has passed ! 

Spiritually, many of us are like those poor Ital- 



84 



THE PEACE OF CHRIST. 



ians. We live out of doors. Our self-conscious- 
ness relates mainly to the condition of the body, 
the gratification of the senses, tastes, and procliv- 
ities, our social position, our success in our respec- 
tive pursuits. Indeed, in sunny weather, and when 
the stars are bright and the air clear, we ail, what- 
ever our characters, enjoy this outside life, and 
God has made it beautiful, because he means that 
we shall enjoy it. But storms drive us in ; and 
storms beat sooner or later on every one of us, — 
on the 3'oung as well as on the old. Sickness, be- 
reavement, disappointment, cloud the sun, hide the 
stars, poison the air, so that external objects cease 
to yield us satisfaction, nay, cease to occupy our 
thoughts, and we are turned in upon ourselves, our 
moral, spiritual being, those memories, feelings, 
affections, which are the soul's house. Is that 
house foul and noisome, dark and desolate ? We 
must take all the discomfort it can give us. Is it 
clean, pure, and bright? We can enjoy it, and 
thank God for it, when there is nothing else for us 
to enjoy. 

Take, for examples, two pictures of interiors that 
have come down to us from those matchless paint- 
ers, the authors of the Hebrew Scriptures. Jo- 
seph's brethren had sold him for a slave, and made 
his father believe that he had been devoured by 
wild beasts. Long afterward they found them- 



THE PEACE OF CHRIST. 



85 



selves in an Egyptian dungeon, from which they 
expected never to be led forth, except to die ; and 
then their memory glided over the intervening 
years, during which they had undoubtedly led an 
easy, self-complacent, out-of-door life, and they 
said one to another, " We are verily guilty con- 
cerning our brother, in that we saw the anguish of 
his soul, when he besought us and we would not 
hear; therefore is this distress come upon us." 
Compare with this the memories which rise before 
Job, when poor, childless, stricken with loathsome 
disease, every element of his out-of-door life swept 
utterly away, he says, " When the ear heard 
me, then it blessed me ; when the e}^e saw me, it 
bare witness to me, because I delivered the poor 
that cried, the fatherless, and him that had none 
to help him. The blessing of him that was ready 
to perish came upon me, and I caused the widow's 
heart to sing for joy. I was eyes to the blind, 
and feet was I to the lame ; I was a father to the 
poor." No wonder that we have along with such 
remembrances that glorious outburst of ecstatic 
hope, " I know that my Redeemer liveth, and will 
stand up at length upon the earth; and though 
with my skin this body be now wasted away, yet 
in my flesh shall I see God." 

I think that there can be hardly any of you, 
even of the youngest among you, who have not 



86 



TEE PEACE OF CHRIST. 



had some experience corresponding to one or 
the other of these types. You have had, if not 
enduring, transient disappointments or griefs, 
brief illnesses, — times when your enjoyment of 
outward things was interrupted ; and whether at 
such times you have been tranquil and happy, or 
weary, wretched, and despondent, has depended on 
3 T our inward character, on your remembrances of 
duty and piety, or of wrong, sin, and shame ; and, 
if the latter, no outward cause has ever given you 
a tithe of the discomfort that has come from your 
inner self-consciousness. *VVe who have reached 
or passed the meridian of our days have, many of 
us, had long seasons of enforced in-door life, — 
chronic sorrows, in which we have seemed to real- 
ize the fable of the vulture preying on the liver 
that grew as fast as it was consumed ; and we 
have then known the peace which the world could 
not give, — an under-current of joy beneath the 
troubled waters, bubbling up ever and anon bright 
and sparkling to the surface, or prolonged dis- 
tress, — agony that refused relief and rejected con- 
solation. 

But these seasons only prefigure the experience 
which death must bring. Then the out-of-door 
life must cease. The soul must be its own heaven, 
or its own hell. I know that heaven is represented 
in holy writ by gorgeous external imagery, — 



THE PEACE OF CHRIST. 



87 



golden streets, gates of pearl, jasper walls, peren- 
nial fountains, the unsetting sun. But we are 
told that the joys of heaven are such as eye has 
not seen nor ear heard, — such only as God reveals 
to us by his Spirit. The golden streets, then, are 
the soul-paths trodden in holy communion with 
the Saviour ; the gates of pearl are those through 
which he enters the believing spirit; the jasper 
walls are the defence and bulwark of an approv- 
ing conscience ; the perennial fountains are purity 
and truth ; the unsetting sun is the radiance, 
never dimmed, that flows from the glory of God in 
the face of Jesus Christ. Our happiness or our 
misery after death, it is obvious, must be contin- 
gent, not on any of those exterior conditions and 
objects which form so ]arge a part of our lives 
here, but solely on what we are. Eternal self- 
communion is our destiny. Shall it be communion 
with selves that we must abhor or despise, or with 
selves into which we can look with gratitude and 
gladness ? This is the question which God would 
have us answer now, — the question which it is 
the sole purpose of these religious rites to aid you 
in answering as you would have it answered when 
you wake immortal from the death-slumber, — the 
question which I would put with a peculiar stress 
of solemnity to those of my audience who are now 
forming characters which it will be increasingly 



88 



THE PEACE OF CHRIST. 



hard to re-form. It may be that the answer you 
give this day will never be retracted (God grant 
it be one which you can never wish or need to re- 
tract !) till you shall realize its full significance in 
the life beyond death. 

In our Saviour's biography we have the most 
vivid illustration of the contrast between the ex- 
ternal and the interior life. How absurd might 
have seemed to a casual bystander the words of 
our text, " My peace I give unto you ! " Thy 
peace ? poor, homeless wanderer, unpitied sufferer ! 
Thou hast never known repose, and thy first bed 
of rest will be thy grave. Penury, scorn, con- 
tumely, thankless toil, desert sojourns, midnight 
vigils, have been thy lot ; and now the traitor's 
meshes are closing upon thee. Jew will cast thee 
over to Gentile mockery and insult ; Gentile will 
toss thee back, buffeted, to fresh Jewish outrage, 
— then the cross, the lacerated flesh, the slowly 
trickling life-blood, the burning thirst, the jeering 
multitude, the long death-agony, the tomb. Thy 
peace ? The powers of earth and hell have de- 
clared it, — There is no peace for thee. 

Yet what utterances are these when he knows 
that he is going forth to die ? Calm, happy, hope- 
ful, triumphant, jubilant. 44 1 have glorified thee 
on the earth ; I have finished the work which thou 
gavest me to do; and now I come to thee." Com- 



TEE PEACE OF CERIST. 



89 



munings, prayers, over which passes not a momen- 
tary shadow of death, but full of the mansions 
in the Father's house, of a joy approaching con- 
summation, of the union of the little company of 
friends so soon to be separated in the home where 
the farewell is never uttered. What sublime com- 
posure through that night and morning, before 
Caiaphas, and Pilate, and Herod, when, forsaken 
by all, he stands a mark for taunts and jeers and 
foul reproaches, and bears his cross on the way to 
Calvary ! What self-forgetting love, what heroic 
charity, in his last filial offices, in his sympathy 
with his fellow-sufferer, in his prayer for his mur- 
derers ! What heavenly serenity in those final 
words that commend his spirit to his Father's 
hands! O Jesus, was ever peace like thine? 
Who would not joyfully take thy sufferings, if 
with them he could put on thy panoply of over- 
coming faith, trust, and love ? Who would not 
wear thy crown of thorns, if with it he could 
clothe himself with a tranquillity like thine ? 

This participation in the peace, as in the suffer- 
ings of Jesus, has been the blessedness of his dis- 
ciples in every age, from the time that Stephen 
saw him in glory, and his face became as an 
angel's countenance, till now that the tried and 
stricken all the world over are soothed and glad- 
dened by the felt sympathy of their divine fellow- 



90 



TEE PEACE OF CHRIST. 



sufferer. Not long ago, a mother and her infant 
child were lashed to a plank of a wrecked vessel, 
and floated many hours on the deep. A boat from 
a passing ship was sent to ascertain what strange 
burde°n it was that the billows bore. Before the 
rowers could discern a human form, they heard the 
voice of singing ; and the song was, — 

" Jesus, lover of my soul, 
Let me to thy bosom fly, 
While the waters near me roll, 
While the tempest still is high." 

There was a soul that had realized in full the 
promise, " My peace I give unto thee ; " and 
equally profound and beatifying is the experience 
of unnumbered believers in Jesus, in every form of 
trial and adversity, and close on the margin of the 
death-flood. What are the elements of this peace? 

First, and chief of all, is the consciousness of 
pure intent, of upright purpose, of inward clean- 
ness and sincerity. With him it was, indeed, more 
than this, — the inward record and witness of entire 
sinlessness, of a perfect life and a finished work, — 
all which we have not suffered him to give us ; but 
if we are, indeed, partakers of his redemption, if 
his cross has done its work for us, we have, at least, 
a spirit that willingly harbors no impure thought, 
that willingly assents to no wrong purpose, that 
endeavors in simplicity and sincerity to discharge 



THE PEACE OF CHRIST. 



91 



its whole duty, and that daily grows in its self- 
command, in its capacity of service, and in its fer- 
vent desire to do God's whole will and to become 
all that he would have it be. This consciousness 
is in itself peace. It confers a substantial happi- 
ness, which is never more felt than in seasons of 
external failure, disappointment, bereavement, or 
suffering. It removes all pain in dying, by pluck- 
ing away sin, the sole " sting of death ; " and it is 
the felt prophecy of the voice of " God that jus- 
tifieth," which shall wake the righteous dead, and 
summon them to the joy of their Lord. 

With this consciousness, and with this alone, is 
inseparably connected, as a second essential ele- 
ment of the peace of Jesus, a sense of intimate 
union of spirit with God. How sweet and tender 
is the expression by Jesus himself of the alliance 
between faithful obedience and fellowship with 
God, — " The Father hath not left me alone ; for I 
do always the things that please him !" So far as 
we also do the things that please God, there is for 
us a fulfilment of the Saviour's prayer, "That they 
all may be one, — as thou, Father, art in me, and 
I in thee, that they may be one in us." It is only 
the pure and loyal heart that can thus enter into 
communion with God, — can see him, as spirit can 
ever see its kindred spirit. This vision of him is 
peace. Let me but know that my soul is precious 



92 



THE PEACE OF CHRIST. 



in his sight ; let me but feel the pulse of the heart- 
bond that makes me his child ; let me but say " My 
Father," with the same assurance of reciprocal love 
with which I use terms of endearment to my human 
kindred, — I can rise superior to all outward dis- 
quiet or privation ; I can meet tribulation with a 
serenity that cannot be disturbed ; no storm shall 
stir the depths of my spirit ; let sorrows fall like 
rattling thunderbolts, let clouds and darkness veil 
from my view all the joy and hope of this outward, 
earthly life, I shall have only calm and sunlight 
within. None of these things shall move me ; for 
" I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor 
things present nor things to come, nor height nor 
depth, nor any other thing that is, shall be able to 
separate us from the love of God which is in Christ 
Jesus our Lord." 

With the loyal and obedient spirit, and the conse- 
quent intimacy of communion with God, comes, as 
the consummation of the peace of Christ, the clear 
vision of immortality. How clear this was to Jesus 
no reader of the Gospels needs to be reminded. 
His whole tone of speech and intercourse is that 
of one who leads a double life, each in its per- 
fectness, — an earthly and a heavenly. As we 
approach him in character, we draw ever nearer to 
his point of view. The revelation of immortality 
finds free entrance only into the soul that has 



THE PEACE OF CHRIST. 



93 



taken possession of its immortal heritage. It is of 
slender significance to him who has nothing within 
him worth living on, or fit to live on, or capable of 
happy life, apart from its material conditions and 
surroundings. Let me be a mere sensualist or a 
mere worldling, with my desires and affections 
wholly bound up in earthly objects, and with only 
such sources of enjoyment as flow from earthly 
fountains, I certainly should not wish to survive 
my bodily life ; and I do not think that such men, 
in general, have any desire or expectation of liv- 
ing, in their own persons, after death. What they 
hope is a mysterious transformation, by which 
they shall wake from their last sleep entirely dif- 
ferent beings, yet in some incomprehensible way 
the same beings. The immortality brought to 
light in the gospel comes in its peace-giving min- 
istry only to those whom Jesus has led in the way 
of holiness into the love and fellowship of God, 
and who thus have derived from him a life worth 
living on, capable of surviving its bodily tenement 
unimpaired. The consciousness of such a life is 
peace. Its seat is beyond the assault of calamity, 
beyond the reach of grief, and in death it remains 
unimpaired ; for it resides not in the earthly house 
that shall be dissolved, but in the renewed and 
consecrated soul, built of God, that it may be 
"eternal in the heavens." 



94 



TEE PEACE OF CHRIST. 



Fidelity in duty, union of spirit with God, the 
full assurance of immortality, — these are the ele- 
ments of the peace so serene, so triumphant, in 
which Jesus trod the way of grief and passed be- 
neath the shadow of death. These are the peace 
which he proffers to us, — his living gift, his dy- 
ing legacy. Let these be wanting, our happiest 
earthly condition is unsheltered and precarious, — 
an out-of-door life which the first assault of grief 
or calamity may, and death assuredly will, shatter 
and sweep away. Let these be ours, we have that 
which the world gave not, and which the world 
cannot take away, — a life beyond life, sure as 
the word of Jesus, eternal as the throne of God. 



JESUS WALKING ON TEE SEA. 



95 



Yin. 

JESUS WALKING ON THE SEA. 
"They see Jesus walking on the sea." — John vi. 19. 

A GREAT multitude had gathered around our 
Saviour on the eastern shore of the Sea of 
Galilee. The feeding of the five thousand had 
fixed the eyes of all upon him in amazement and 
reverence ; and in the first tumult of their enthu- 
siasm they are disposed to seize his person, and to 
force into his hands the fallen sceptre of David. 
But the bare rumor, much more the initiation of 
such a scheme, would have drawn down upon the 
infatuated -nation the full weight of Roman ven- 
geance. To save them from their own rashness, 
Jesus withdraws to a neighboring mountain, and 
orders his disciples to embark for Capernaum with- 
out him. A contrary wind, with the quick, short 
swell which often makes the navigation of narrow, 
land-locked lakes more dangerous than that of the 
ocean, impedes their progress ; so that midnight 
overtakes them, and the dense darkness that pre- 
cedes the dawn is already upon them, with hardly 



96 JESUS WALKING ON THE SEA. 



half their passage accomplished. In the deepening 
gloom, in the thickening peril, over the leaping, 
crested waves, they suddenly behold the form of 
their Master. The sea owns its Lord. The bil- 
lows are a solid pavement for his tread. He walks 
upon the lake as he might have walked by its 
shore. 

Those footsteps, which then seemed to leave no 
track, remain indelible on the paths of the sea. 
They are the revelation of a divine providence over 
the heaving deep, — of a force mightier than wind 
or wave. They indicate the control of Omnipo- 
tence over every fierce element and untamable 
power of nature. They show us Nature, not her 
own, but God's, — not governed by an irresistible 
necessity, but her very laws, which seem to bind 
all being with inflexible chains, fluent and duc- 
tile under the Almighty hand. 

This view of our Saviour's works of power and 
love, as revelations of the Providence which 
always is, as the laying bare of the springs of 
events that are always taking place, is well worth 
a fuller development. I now merely refer to it in 
passing, and shall confine myself to a few thoughts 
suggested rather by the words of my text, than by 
the event which it describes. 

Jesus walked upon the sea. Does he not always 
walk upon it ? Lies not his path ever over deep 



JESUS WALKING ON THE SEA. 97 

waters ? Is not his majestic tread on the Galilean 
lake typical of his march along the. ages, of his 
way in the heart of man, of his path as our herald 
and guide to the life eternal ? 

1. Of his march along the ages. No figure seems 
more nearly literal than that by which we speak 
of the waves, the current, or the sea of time ; for 
how constantly is the lapse of years and centuries 
immersing and obliterating, not men alone, but 
races, with their works and their memorials ; 
washing away ancient landmarks ; sweeping into 
oblivion great names, magnificent plans, towering 
hopes ; overflowing the dykes set up by arms and 
laws ; inundating the most carefully fenced har- 
vest-fields of human industry and enterprise ! 
How entirely, since the Son of God walked 
among men, has the whole surface of humanity 
been revolutionized ! Of the civilized nations now 
on the earth, not one then had a place or name, 
except the Hebrews, — that oldest and youngest 
of races ; that burning bush of history, whence 
sprang the "rod out of the stem of Jesse." Horde 
after horde of barbarians, then unknown, swept 
down the hills and over the plains of southern 
Europe, laying waste the monuments and the ma- 
terials of earlier culture, themselves to rise to a 
sounder and nobler civilization, and to roll back 
its current on the rude Northlands of their birth. 

5 G 



98 



JESUS WALKING ON THE SEA. 



The languages in which the gospel was promul- 
gated are no longer spoken in their then existing 
forms. The modes of social life then prevalent 
are to be traced out only by painful research, with 
large aid from a constructive fancy. The religions 
that then had their world-honored shrines have 
left only their sepulchres. Meanwhile, Jesus has 
ever walked the waves. The gospel has never 
been for one moment submerged, or been less than 
the one shaping, controlling power in the destiny 
of man. The winds and the floods have beat 
against it in vain. 

At the outset, fierce and bitter persecution as- 
sailed Christianity ; but every drop of martyr- 
blood shed for its sake blossomed in some new 
flower of Heaven's own planting. Its purest tri- 
umphs, its most hopeful growths, were under the 
very agencies employed to crush it out of being. 
From beneath the heel of the Caesars it mounted 
their throne and swaj^ed their sceptre. Then com- 
menced the severer trial of corrupting prosperity ; 
and still could not its ordinances be distorted 
wholly out of shape, or its cardinal doctrines wholly 
obscured, or its benign influence wholly obliterated. 
When incrusted with superstitions and falsities, 
it still parted not with its divine unction; in its 
tarnished purity, it was still the purest thing 
on earth ; in its diluted ethics, it still had power 



JESUS WALKING ON THE SEA. 99 



to restrain and guide ; and at no moment did the 
world fail to be immeasurably the better for it. 

Invading races threatened to destroy all that 
had been where they planted their standard. All 
but the gospel they did destroy. To this alone 
they yielded ; and by this were their excesses held 
in check, their barbarity humanized, their idolatry 
driven into oblivion, their whole being refined and 
exalted. The earlier centuries of their sway seem 
dark, on a superficial retrospect, because the cor- 
rupt civilization of the empire they overran had 
fallen into decay ; but, so far from meriting 
the opprobrious designation of dark ages, they 
were pre-eminently ages • of progress. During 
their lapse noble charities had birth ; humane 
maxims grew current ; forbearance to the fallen 
enemy and respect for womanhood became essen- 
tial characteristics of true valor ; home-life, with 
its guardian virtues and its blessed amenities, 
sprang into being ; freedom found voice ; domestic 
slavery was abolished throughout all Christen- 
dom ; and the world that emerged from the obscu- 
rity of those unlettered times, showed that over 
the billows that had swallowed up the old Roman 
empire Jesus had walked as sovereign, and his 
gospel had brooded with renovating and trans- 
forming efficacy. - 

I hardly need ask you to trace his march in 



100 JESUS WALKING ON THE SEA. 



these latter centuries, in which, if there be any 
virtue, it is of his creation ; if any praise, it has 
redounded to his glory ; if any progress, it has 
been inspired and moulded by him. How many are 
the forces which, since the revival of letters, have 
threatened to ingulf his faith and his ordinances ! 
The sciences of recent origin have, in their early 
shallowness, dashed upon him the spray of their 
ignorant scepticism ; but no sooner has any foun- 
tain of knowledge become deep and clear than 
it has invited his tread, and rolled tributary waves 
to his feet. Infidelity, by turns learned and philo- 
sophic, fierce and truculent, vulgar and insolent, 
sarcastic and derisive, according to the mood of 
the age, has, like the dragon in the Apocalypse, 
" cast out of its mouth water like a flood, that it 
might cause him to be carried away with the 
flood." But there has been no phase of infidelity 
which has not been self-refuted in its own absurd- 
ity or guile, — none that has not supplied fresh 
arguments for faith; and "the earth hath opened 
her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the 
dragon cast out of his mouth." When power has 
been arrayed against Christianity, it has been sub- 
dued and annihilated. Over the ever-rushing tor- 
rent of human affairs, Jesus has moved, alone able 
to arrest or guide its flow, and with an ever more 
kingly march and more controlling sway. 



JESUS WALKING ON THE SEA. 101 

And, lo ! as the centuries roll on, his circuit 
widens ; his steps lay hold on the ends of the earth 
and the islands of the sea. He crosses the ocean ; 
and our New World, redeemed from savage strife 
and squalidness, bears his name and echoes his 
praise, from the polar circle down below the 
southernmost tropic. He resumes his ocean-path, 
and cannibals' war-spears are broken up for the 
railings of his altars ; cruel and brutal islanders sit 
clothed and in their right mind at his feet ; and 
each hears and rehearses the wonderful works of 
God, "in his own tongue wherein he was born." 

Thus is Christianity the one force which, since 
it started, has not known decline ; the one form 
of thought and culture which the ages have not 
swallowed up ; the one divine presence, which, 
like the ark on the waters of the Deluge, has out- 
ridden wave and current, flood and storm. 

2. Our text suggests the way of Christ in the 
heart of man. How fierce the waves that threaten 
our peace and well-being ! How loudly do the 
floods lift up their voice ! Passion and appetite, 
the lust of the eye and the pride of life, desire and 
fear, — how do they, by turns or together, beat 
and surge in the soul that abandons itself to 
earthly interests and pleasures ! How many are 
there in no sense their own masters, with their 
wills subordinated to their lower natures, and 



102 JESUS WALKING ON THE SEA. 



aptly compared by the apostle to a wave of the 
sea, storm-driven and wind-tossed ! What power 
but Christ's can walk these waves? What tread 
but his do they not spurn ? But let him enter, 
these billows know their Lord. He holds no 
second place. The winds and the waves are at 
his control, sink at his feet, are calm under his 
tread. 

What miracles of mercy has he not wrought in 
these subject souls ! Here — you can recognize 
the picture — was intemperance or lust. No 
friendship or love could stem its current. No 
earthly power or human endeavor was adequate 
to subdue or check it. In a turbid whirlpool that 
seemed to boil up from the bottomless pit, all that 
should have been the pride and joy of life was 
sucked in, and lost. Into that soul the Saviour 
has found admission, and the whirlpool has sub- 
sided into the pit whence it rose. Passion has 
died away. For its angry surge there were whis- 
pering murmurs, and then serene stillness. Ap- 
petite has been tamed by his rebuke, and for its 
fierce, tumultuous impulse, there are now gentle 
breathings from the spirit of heavenly grace. In 
the soul that seemed the eddy of perpetual storms, 
and over which midnight brooded, all is now quiet 
and peaceful, bright and pure ; while the one 
form, mirrored from its glassy surface, sent up 



JESUS WALKING ON TEE SEA. 103 

from its transparent depths, is that of Jesus walk- 
ing on the sea. 

Again: in that spirit — you can trace the like- 
ness — raged every unholy passion of which man 
could be the object, — prompt and bitter resent- 
ment, vindictive anger, burning envy, implacable 
malice, — a sea lashed into unceasing foam as 
by the bat-wings of graceless demons. Jesus has 
entered there ; and resentment has ceased, ven- 
geance has died, envy finds place no longer ; for- 
bearance, love, forgiveness, mercy, rule the ebb 
and flow of thought and feeling: for he who 
walked on the Galilean sea, and stilled its pulse- 
beat, moves over this spirit in the calm yet om- 
nipotent energy whereby he is able to subdue all 
things unto himself. 

In every soul into which he enters, he walks 
as sovereign. His, where a power, is a supreme, 
controlling power. Him the inward elements 
obey. The forces of character mould themselves 
at his command. Whatever nature may have 
inherited, whatever example may have cherished, 
whatever habit may have confirmed, yields to his 
bidding; submits what he can make his own to 
the voice of his word ; resigns all else to his grow- 
ing ascendency over mind, heart, and soul. 

My friends, are there not some of us whose 
spirits are as a troubled sea, craving a controlling 



104 



JESUS WALKING ON TEE SEA. 



presence, a subduing sovereignty ? In Jesus, then, 
let us behold our need, our peace, our joy. 

" Thou who hast thyself 
Endured this fleshhood, knowing how, as a soaked 
And sucking vesture, it would drag us down, 
And choke us in the melancholy deep, 
Sustain us, that with thee we walk these waves, 
Resisting ! Breathe us upward, thou for us 
Aspiring, who art the Way, the Truth, the Life ; 
That no truth henceforth seem indifferent, 
No way to truth laborious, and no life, 
Not even this life we live, intolerable." 

3. Finally, our text points, by an obvious anal- 
ogy, to our Saviour's path as our herald and guide 
to the life eternal. The waves of death, the ocean 
of eternity, — how fearful the plunge, the passage, 
when the inward eye looks into the dread and dark 
abyss, and beholds no friendly form, no sustaining 
hand ! How intolerable the thought of dying, 
when it breaks in upon the midst of happy life ; 
when it is forced upon us by the passing away of 
those whose earthly promise but yesterday seemed 
as fair as our own ; when we are constrained to 
confess the frailty of our hold upon this world, and 
yet our all is here, and no word or gesture of invi- 
tation and good cheer comes to us from the billows 
that roll almost to our very feet ! These feelings 
of dismay are natural and right. They are immeas- 
urably more rational and timely than the ease and 



JESUS WALKING ON THE SEA. 



105 



carelessness into which we relapse at intervals ; for 
if sin — the sting of death — remain unremoved 
and unforgiven, nature has no promise, hope no 
voice, eternity no sign of good omen. But One 
has walked these waves, and lived ; and he ever 
lives ; and his words to his dying disciples are, " T 
will come again," — yes, will come again, and re- 
new at your side the passage from earthly trial and 
suffering to the broken sepulchre, and thence to 
the right hand of the Majesty on high, — "I will 
come again, and receive you unto myself, that 
where I am, there ye may be also." 

I have often seen the death-shadow stealing with 
slow yet unmistakable approaches over those who 
had every thing to attach them to this world, — no 
blighted joys or withered hopes, but only blossoms 
of beauty and buds of promise on the life-tree. 
When the fatal certainty has first been made 
known, I have repeatedly heard the utterance of 
intense agony, — "Oh! I cannot die, — I cannot 
die ! This parting from all I love is more than I 
can bear. I can never reconcile myself to being 
cut off from every thing bright and beautiful 
around me." To the soul thus shrinking from the 
inevitable flood, thus trembling with keen and 
overpowering sensibility as the feet touch its mar- 
gin, the Saviour's passage through the deep has 
been lovingly traced, his words of pardon and hope 
5* 



106 JESUS WALKING ON TEE SEA. 



rehearsed, the pledge of his guidance assured, the 
thought of crossing the fearful stream, and enter- 
ing the unknown life beyond, hand in hand with 
him made precious. And then have I witnessed the 
vanishing of all sad foreboding, — the established 
reign of sweet peace, and of hope, its anchor cast 
within the veil. Fear has yielded place to a seren- 
ity which the gnawings of disease, the slow, sure 
finger of decay, the conscious approach to the 
grave, could not disturb. No longer goes forth 
the agonizing cry, " Save, Lord, or I perish ! " But, 
as the sacred form, for us made mortal, is beheld 
by the faith-enlightened vision, the soul's voice is 
that of the ardent apostle, " Lord, if it be thou, bid 
me come unto thee on the water." Yes, Jesus, 
seen by the death-bound spirit, looses all the fear 
and the pain of dying ; and the young, the feeble, 
those who have the strongest hold on life, those 
who have the most to leave behind, are among the 
foremost in their readiness to go, — in their desire 
to depart and be with Christ. 

My friends, surrounded as we are by the memo- 
rials of human frailty, reminded so often that in 
the midst of life open the gates of death, is there 
not intense and perpetual reason for our meeting 
its fear before its shadow shall gather over our 
path ? Is there not in God's constant providence 
an incessant call to all of us to live always pre- 



JESUS WALKING ON THE SEA. 107 



pared for the last of earth and the dawn of heaven ? 
I speak of what I know; I testify of what I have 
seen. I have stood by many death-beds, and have 
gone down in the profoundest sympathy to the 
margin of the separating stream with many souls 
that have been given to my charge ; and I well 
know how precious is the name of Jesus in the ear 
of the dying, and how utterly inadequate to the 
needs of the closing hour are all other names and 
resources. I feel assured that there can be no sup- 
port for us, when " sunk low," as we must be full 
soon at the farthest, unless we be 

"Mounted high 
Through the dear might of him that walked the waves." 

With him present to our faith, his reanimated form 
as he comes forth new-born from the sepulchre, 
his burial-garments laid aside as trophies of his 
victory and our own, we can commit ourselves to 
the dark, cold stream that divides time from eter- 
nity, and there shall be only solemn joy in our 
hearts ; for where he treads, his follower cannot 
sink ; while he sustains, there is no room for fear. 
Our hands in his, death is life ; and across its 
waves is the way to the Father's house on high. 



108 



CHRIST IN THE FAMILY. 



IX. 



CHRIST IN THE FAMILY. 



" There they made him a supper, and Martha served ; but Lazarus was 
one of them that sat at the table with him." — John xii. 2. 



UR Saviour had come toward Jerusalem to 



die. On the morrow he was to make that 
meekly triumphant entrance into the city, whose 
hosannas were so soon to be changed into execra- 
tions. He loved this family at Bethany, and they 
deemed no privilege so great as that of preparing 
his welcome. How full of tenderness and grati- 
tude must have been the welcome now, with the 
echo of that wakening voice still pulsing on the in- 
ward ear, — with the recent remembrance of the 
funeral wail merged in solemn praise, as he who 
was dead came forth alive ! Mark the group. 
There is the assiduous Martha, deeming her care 
and painstaking hallowed by the sacred presence. 
There is the new-born from the sepulchre, looking 
again into those eyes which had poured fresh life- 
beams into his own. There is the gentle, loving 
Mary, d linking in the divine words which are her 




CHRIST IN THE FAMILY. 109 



portion and her joy, and meditating the costly 
tribute for her wayworn guest, to be furnished by 
the very unguents that had remained over from the 
rites of sorrowing love for her brother. 

The scene suggests Christ in the family, — Christ 
the welcome guest in the home-circle. I propose 
to speak of our need of Christ in the family. 

1. We need him, first, in the sacred trust, com- 
mitted to us, of one another's happiness. It is 
impossible to overestimate the proportion of our 
happiness derived from domestic relations, as com- 
pared to that which comes from all other earthly 
sources united, or the degree to which causes of 
domestic disquiet can neutralize prosperity, honor, 
and every external object of desire. In our out- 
of-door life many of us are able to case ourselves 
.in an armor of determined purpose, resolute en- 
deavor, and strenuous industry, which is proof 
against petty annoyances. But at home, this ar- 
mor is thrown aside ; the whole nervous tissue of 
the soul, the minute network of sentiment and 
feeling, is laid bare ; every shrinking fibre of sen- 
sibility is exposed without protection, and the 
slightest puncture may produce untold agony. Or, 
to vary the figure, these complex, many-stringed 
lyres of mind and soul, sense and feeling, may, 
out-of-doors, be set ajar, and their discord shall 
be lost in the wind, or merged in the tumultuous 



110 



CUBIST IN THE FAMILY. 



noises of the busy world ; but within close walls 
every discordant note falls with painful stroke on 
the ear, and its harsh echo vibrates for hours, and 
gathers strength from reverberation. 

To preserve the home-harmony, we need more 
than the general goodness, the cardinal virtues, 
enforced by the natural conscience and by public 
opinion. We need that Christ tune each throbbing 
string of each living lyre. The evangelic virtues 
are precisely those which alone can make a happy 
family. There must be, not pride, but that modest 
and lowly self-estimate which shall concede his 
due and more to every member of the circle ; not 
self-assertion and obstinate adherence to one's own 
preference in things indifferent, but a mutual 
yielding, "in honor preferring one another;" not 
the captious spirit, on the watch for causes of 
offence, but the heart slow of suspicion, and inca- 
pable of imagining slight or wrong where none is 
intended; not quick resentment, but forbearance 
and long-suffering, in the consciousness that, in 
the alternations of temper and feeling to which 
we all are liable, each may claim to-morrow the 
kind construction that is demanded of him to-day ; 
not the rough, curt answer, the abrupt utterance, 
the ungentle mien, but the meekness and courtesy, 
not to be simulated, which are the spontaneous, 
every -day garb of a truly Christ-like soul ; not the 



CHRIST IN THE FAMILY. 



Ill 



selfish indolence, good-natured though it be, which 
quietly lets itself be ministered to, and takes as 
rightfully its own the sunny side, the place of privi- 
lege, the Benjamin's portion, but the spirit of wil- 
ling and cheerful service, which claims its unstinted 
share in the division of every common burden, and 
which never forgets that the Lord of men and 
of angels came to minister, not to be ministered 
unto, and pronounced him the greatest who makes 
himself the least and the servant of all. 

We all know that these are the elements of do- 
mestic peace and happiness. We who trust that 
we have learned enough of Christ to be saved 
from gross sins and great transgressions, have, 
most of us, been oftener called to penitence and 
self-humiliation for offences under these heads 
than for all things else. Now I know not how we 
are to overcome these infirmities of temper, these 
easily besetting sins, except as we emulate the be- 
loved family of Bethany, — like Martha, serve 
Christ in the routine of domestic care and duty ; 
like Mary, have our chosen place at his feet, and 
under the word-fall of his lips ; like Lazarus, have 
him at our side when we sit at table. We need 
to contemplate his meek and gentle spirit, his kind 
and courteous mien, his self-sacrifice, his constant 
thought and care for those around him, his genial 
sympathy alike with joy and with grief, till our 



112 



CHRIST IN THE FAMILY. 



souls receive the image we behold, and the loving 
Christ be fully formed within us. Thus, and thus 
only, can the earthly family grow into the simili- 
tude of the heavenly, and the union here be 
prophetic of that which shall make us one in 
the Father's house on high. 

2. We need Christ with us in our homes, when 
we consider our mutual influence in the formation 
of character. Talk as we may of our separate 
individualities, we cannot so fence them in that 
they shall not be invaded and affected by their 
surroundings and associations. There is perpetual 
action and reaction, the parent acting upon the 
child, the child hardly less upon the parent, each 
brother and sister upon every other member of the 
little flock. 

Parents, your precepts have little power, un- 
seconded by your example. Your children will 
be, not what }^ou teach, but what you are. The 
tone of frankness, sincerit}^, meekness, kindness, 
which you give to your whole domestic inter- 
course, will shape their characters ; and the faults 
which in you are home-faults, may in them grow 
into exaggerated forms in a larger sphere. The 
petty shams and falsities, the concealments and 
equivocations in paltry matters, which you may 
practise with no compunction, may destroy in 
them all reverence for truth and right; and the 



CERT ST IN THE FAMILY. 



113 



flagrant guilt of their maturer years may be but 
the natural outgrowth of what your sluggish con- 
science refused to account as sin. Your petulance 
or violence, your selfishness or penuriousness, 
shielded from the world's eye, yet unrestrained 
where unseen, may in them gain so early and vig- 
orous a growth as to strangle every germ of better 
feeling or higher principle. 

Not on the parents alone does this responsibility 
rest. Every member of the circle that has arrived 
at self-determining years, may, by follies, faults, or 
sins, regarded at first with leniency, then with 
indulgence, too often at length with complacency, 
make inroads on the characters even of his parents 
and elders ; so that he who is at first constrained, 
in agony of spirit, to suffer the presence of moral 
evil in his household, becomes more and more in 
heart, if not in act, an accomplice in it and a par- 
taker of it. 

On the other hand, there is no benign influence 
that can bear comparison with the power of a good 
life, — the radiation of a Christ-like spirit. Like 
the light of mid-day, it pervades the whole house, 
and you cannot shut it out. Without ostentation, 
seen ; without profession, felt ; veiled, it may be, 
in profound humility, yet making the thickest veil 
transparent, — it transfuses itself into the common 
life of the family, and all beneath the roof imbibe 

H 



114 



CHRIST IN THE FAMILY. 



its blessing. All, I say ; for, if there be those 
whom it fails to inspire with the love of goodness, 
at least, by the example of goodness, it saves their 
consciences from utter torpidity, keeps them aware 
of what they ought to be, and therefore gives 
added hope of their return to a right mind. 

Thus the life consecrated to duty, filled with 
meekness and love, true and pure, reverent and 
devout, is the one mode above all others in which 
we may minister to the growth of character among 
those dearest to us, and may neutralize for them 
the power of evil influence. Without this, holy 
precept, sanctimonious conversation, the set pa- 
rade and form of piety, nay, even the most sacred 
exercises of domestic devotion, will do positive 
harm ; for to impressible minds and ductile char- 
acters they will inevitably connect with religious 
words and observances all the repulsive associa- 
tions that can grow from bad tempers, selfish hab- 
its, and careless lives. 

I would urge, with the strongest emphasis, the 
establishment of the family altar in every house- 
hold, not only for its appropriateness and its in- 
trinsic significance, but even more for its power 
over character. He who officiates as priest in the 
daily oblation of praise and prayer cannot but feel 
constraining motives to cultivate a priestly spirit 
and to lead a priestly life. The holy names which 



CHRIST IN THE FAMILY. 115 

he takes upon his lips in the morning must remain 
near his thought through the day ; and unless his 
conscience be utterly dead, he will not, cannot, so 
live that his prayer shall be an abomination, and 
the lif ting-up of his hands to God profaneness and 
blasphemy. If he lead his family in devotion, he 
must — it might seem inevitably — seek to be their 
exemplar in duty, and to diffuse among them in 
daily life the blessedness he invokes for them 
in his prayer. 

The intense importance of the mutual home- 
influence of which I am speaking will appear, 
when we consider one obvious reason why char- 
acter should have a more rapid growth in the 
family than elsewhere. It is this : Our passive 
hours are largely spent at home. By passive I 
denote the state in which we are open without 
defence to impressions from other persons and 
external. objects and events, — in which we make 
no resistance of the will to outside influences, and 
take in without questioning whatever thoughts or 
sentiments crave admission. From the treasury of 
the heart, thus filled we often know not how, the 
words of our lips and the motives of our active 
hours are drawn. Now this passive, impressible, 
recipient life we in the family are constantly feed- 
ing, each in every other. By means of it, each, 
with rare exceptions, will in a good measure grow 



116 



CHRIST IN THE FAMILY. 



into the aggregate or average moral tone and feel- 
ing of all ; and while a more commanding position, 
superior age, or greater strength of intellect will 
make a deeper impression, and impart more of 
itself, there is not one of the circle who does not 
furnish his own contribution of good or evil to the 
collective character, and to each individual dispo- 
sition, habit of speech, and manner of life. 

Thus, if in the great world, immeasurably more 
in our own households, we are set for the fall or 
the rising of those around us ; so that every law 
of love commends to us the sentiment of our 
Saviour, " For their sakes I sanctify myself." 
For this inevitable influence we can be furnished 
only by Christ as an always welcome guest. We 
need to breathe in his spirit of submission and 
trust, of obedience and love, to mark his uninter- 
mitted fidelity, to follow him on his round of self- 
denying service, to stand in adoring faith by his 
cross, and to catch the rays of his countenance till 
they are phototyped on our hearts, to be outrayed 
spontaneously in that social intercourse whereby 
we may stamp the same divine impress on the 
souls which the Lord has 44 bound in the bundle 
of life " with our own. 

3. We need Jesus in the family in our seasons 
of trial, grief, and desolation. How many are the 
times when our love is helpless and hopeless ; 



CHRIST IN THE FAMILY. 



117 



when calamities which we cannot avert hang over 
the home circle ; when the heart sinks under the 
shadow of impending or the dense gloom of expe- 
rienced bereavement ; when we are made to feel 
how truly we dwell in houses of clay and have 
our tabernacle in the dust ! At such seasons, past 
prosperity, the continued affluence of earthly re- 
sources, the crowding around us of objects that 
we can no longer enjoy, only enhances our misery. 
Our sole resource is the compassion, the love, the 
promises of him to whom the sisters of Bethany 
resorted in their need. We crave his assurance of 
the Father's unchanging mercy and unslumbering 
providence, his tender sympathy with our fear and 
grief, his words of eternal life, the vision of his 
risen form as he comes forth from the sepulchre. 
If he be with us, there is no fear, no agonizing 
doubt, no rayless despondency. We can yield up 
the departing spirit to the sure mercy of the risen 
Redeemer. We can trace the way of those whom 
the Lord loves, when, no longer seen by mortal 
eye, they pass from the outer court into the holy 
of holies, from the lower to the higher apartments 
of the universal house of God. 

Touchingly beautiful and richly suggestive was 
the conduct of Martha and Mary in their season 
of trial and sorrow. Jesus had been their guest 
(oh, let him be ours !) in the days of health and 



118 CHRIS T IN TEE FAMIL Y. 



hope, and had endeared himself to them by his 
genial sympathy with their domestic cares and 
joys ; and no sooner is their dear brother in peril, 
than they feel that they cannot keep the weary 
watch without their friend. They send the mes- 
sage, "Behold, he whom thou lovest is sick." 
The dreaded close comes before he arrives, and 
the staff and joy of their little household is laid in 
the sepulchre. But when he reaches them, light 
breaks in upon their gloom. " Lord, if thou hadst 
been here," says Martha, 44 my brother had not 
died ; " and then, with the assurance that it is not 
too great a boon for him to bestow, and with the 
trembling hope that it may not be too much for 
them to receive, she adds, " But I know that 
even now, whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God 
will give it thee." Such, Christian friends, have 
been the outgoings of your souls to your Saviour, 
when the lives of those dear both to him and to 
you have flickered, have hung in suspense over 
the verge of death, have passed away. Your con- 
solation has flowed from the felt presence of your 
Redeemer. You have poured, as into the ear of 
an ever-loving friend, your fears and your yearn- 
ings ; and when there was no longer the fading 
hope that had its hold on earth, your hope has 
taken the wings of faith; your fervent thanks 



CHRIST IN THE FAMILY. 



119 



have gone up to Christ, " the Resurrection and 
the Life," and the assurance, " He shall rise 
again," has been as clear and strong as if the 
words had floated clown to you from the parted 
heavens. 

4. Finally, we need Christ with us m the family, 
when we remember that in an earthly sense our 
domestic ties are as frail as they are strong ; that, 
with undying love, there must be parting upon 
parting, till not one of the circle shall remain to 
chronicle the goings of the death-angel ; that in a 
few years the places that know us will barely and 
scarcely retain the vague memory of our names. 
Only the family with which Christ is a welcome 
guest and a familiar friend can feel that its union 
is beyond the touch of death. Only as we are one 
in him, can we be assured that we are one for ever. 
Only he who gave Lazarus to his sisters can give 
us to one another where there shall be no death 
and no parting. How unspeakably blessed is it to 
feel that those whom God has joined death shall 
not keep asunder ; to know that with these bonds 
of blood and birth, which, sacred as they are, are in 
their very source and nature perishable, are inter- 
twined amaranthine heart-bonds of spiritual kin- 
dred, — that we are one in Christ, hi whom the 
dead live, and in whom the divided and bereaved 



120 



CHRIST IN THE FAMILY. 



family, trusting together in his redemption, shall 
be united in angel-worship and immortal love ! 

" Above the gloomy grave our hope ascends, 
E'en as the moon above the silent mountains. 
These partings are reunions in the skies. 
. To that great company of holy ones 
They go ; and we that stay how soon shall follow* 
Through all our stubborn fears and craggy doubts 
Are Christ-worn paths that lead into the future, 
Well-beaten by the stress of pious feet. 
Let not our hearts be troubled ; Christ has gone 
Before ; whither we know, the way we know." 



JESUS AND THE COMMON PEOPLE. 121 



X. 



JESUS AND THE COMMON PEOPLE. 
" The common people heard him gladly." — Mark xii. 37. 

[ 7"HY ? Because he was one of them in edu- 



cation, position, habits of living ; because 
he never disowned his condition or was ashamed 
of it; and because, at the same time, he made them 
feel that their fraternity was honored and exalted 
hy his belonging to it. The common people dis- 
like, despise upstarts from their own ranks, — men 
who give themselves, without warrant of pedigree, 
airs Of hereditary gentility, — persons of talent and 
genius, from among themselves, who are unduly 
self-conscious, or pretentious, or conceited. But 
they have a peculiar sense of ownership in what- 
ever of real worth has grown on their soil and does 
not disdain it. Now, if we will for the moment 
devest Jesus of the prestige that belongs to him as 
the Author and Finisher of our faith, and think of 
him as he was regarded at the outset by his kin- 
dred and friends, we shall see that throughout his 
life he attached himself, not to the rulers, or rich 




6 



122 JESUS AND TEE COMMON PEOPLE. 



men, or leaders in society, but to the common peo- 
ple ; that he was seldom a guest at a sumptuous 
table, and that when he was so, he was treated 
rudely, as one not belonging there ; that his asso- 
ciates were principally intelligent fishermen, — with 
one tax-gatherer, who was, though probably a man 
of some substance, of inferior social standing ; for, 
when he wanted to make an entertainment for the 
Teacher, he could fill his table only by inviting 
persons whom the Pharisees did not consider as 
respectable. The apostles were, as I have said, 
sensible men, but they were of the common people ; 
when in Jerusalem, they evidently felt that they 
were but obscure provincials ; and it was in trying 
to cover up the unmistakable tokens of his Galilean 
rusticity that Peter was led on to deny his Master, 
— an occasion, too, on which he could curse and 
swear, which was as coarse and vulgar then as it 
is now, and always shows, if not low birth, low 
breeding. 

But though Jesus had no outward advantages 
above the common people, they evidently owned 
him as their superior, and gladly listened to him, 
because his meekness and his modesty were equal 
to his wisdom, — because he not only said what 
they wanted and needed to hear, but said it always 
gently and kindly. They must have felt the con- 
trast between themselves and him ; but he never 



JESUS AND THE COMMON PEOPLE. 123 



obtruded it upon them, and whenever he could, he 
rebuked them simply by showing them the better 
way. 

There cannot be a more apt illustration of this 
tacit, yet most efficient mode of rebuke than the 
scene at the paschal supper. The disciples are in 
a high quarrel. One like themselves, vexed with 
their loud and angry words, would have tried to 
stop them by making a third party in the quarrel, 
and perhaps by being louder and more angry than 
any of the rest. What does Jesus do ? They are 
disputing as to their respective claims to pre- 
cedence, — very probably for the place of honor at 
that very table, - or, perhaps, as to the performance 
on that occasion of the necessary services which 
must be managed somehow among themselves, as 
they cannot afford to hire attendants. He whom 
they all regard as their Chief and Master takes the 
place of -a servant, performs for all of them the me- 
nial office which custom and comfort demanded, but 
which not one of them would for the world have 
performed for another, and thus shames them out 
of their strife, at the same time teaching them 
so that the}^ could never have forgotten the les- 
son, that service is always honorable and glorious ; 
that he is the greatest who at the call of love or 
duty can make himself the least; that humility 
alone exalts and enobles. 



124 JESUS AND TEE COMMON PEOPLE. 



Thus meek, lowly, genial, thoughtful for others, 
winning and never repelling, he goes about among 
those simple Galileans ; is with them at the mar- 
riage, by the sick-bed, at the grave-side, in their 
homes, in their fishing-boats, laying his hands in 
blessing on their children's heads, discharging all 
kindly ministries for them in their penury, their 
trials, and their griefs, never assuming aught to 
himself as their superior, but always attracting the 
homage he does not claim, the reverence he does 
not challenge. 

There are in the life of Jesus several scenes that 
vividly illustrate the sweetness and affability of 
his intercourse. Some of them are traditionally 
stiffened into a cold and rigid pietism, and thus 
deprived of their native charm. This is the case 
with the visit to Martha and Mary in Bethany, 
recorded by St. Luke. That religion is the " one 
thing needful," and the "good part," no serious 
reader of the New Testament can doubt, nor yet 
that Mary made her choice of eternal blessedness 
in seeking her place at the Saviour's feet. Yet 
in this special narrative, we have, as it seems to 
me, not a homily in brief, but a sketch of our 
Saviour's life among his friends, showing how 
simple, unexacting, kindly, were his speech and 
manners as a guest. Martha is busy in preparing 
the best that the house can afford for his supper. 



JESUS AND THE COMMON PEOPLE. 125 



Mary takes her seat by him, to listen to those 
words which she has learned so dearly to love. 
Martha, not peevishly, bnt rather half playfully, 
asks him to send her sister to help her. He re- 
plies (if I may be permitted to express by a para- 
phrase the sense which his words convey to my 
mind), " Martha, you are taking too much trouble 
for your friend's entertainment. All that he wants 
is jouv society. Mary is giving me the one thing 
needful, showing the better part of hospitality, in 
entertaining me by her presence and conversation, 
rather than by the care and labor of a sumptuous 
repast." No wonder was it that one who bore his 
high commission thus gently and lovingly found 
his most willing hearers among those common peo- 
ple, whom he always treated as socially his peers, 
yet who were never with him without feeling that 
they were in a superior presence, — without being 
suffused with a vague, yet realizing sense of the 
divine in him, — all the more penetrating because 
of his frank simplicity, his ready companionship, 
his lowliness of mien and manner. 

The common people heard him gladly, also, be- 
cause his teachings, though they were of divine 
and heavenly things, were not above the level of 
their easy comprehension. He drew his lessons 
from the occasion, or from the objects about him. 
Our translation has a stately formalism in its 



126 JESUS AND THE COMMON PEOPLE. 



phraseology, which, while it preserves the dignity, 
often fails of representing the aptness, of his dis- 
course. Thus, standing on the hill-top on a glo- 
rious spring day, he says, not with oratorical 
rotundness, " Behold the fowls of the air ; behold 
the lilies of the field ; " but, " See those birds ; it 
is your Father that feeds them ; will he not much 
more care for you ? Look at those lilies. Did 
Solomon ever wear any thing half so beautiful ? 
It is your Father that makes them so lovely ; can- 
not his children trust themselves in his hands ? " 

The parables of Jesus are founded on ob- 
jects and incidents familiar to his hearers, — the 
sower ; the seeds which, as they spring up, look so 
like the wheat that it is hard to tell them apart ; 
the mustard-seed ; the contents of a drag-net ; 
the marriage-procession by torch-light ; the fre- 
quent robberies on the lonely road from Jerusalem 
to Jericho. These themes could not but attract 
the attention, dwell in the memory, and gradually 
develop the lessons — often not understood at the 
outset — of which they were made the vehicles. 
Had the same truths been uttered in dogmatic 
language, they would have found few or no lis- 
teners, or have been forgotten as soon as heard. 
How profound far-reaching, all-embracing were, 
often, the instructions which he gave in the sim- 
plest, briefest form imaginable, in connection with 



JESUS AND THE COMMON PEOPLE. 127 



some transient event or trivial object ! Thus the 
whole theory of benevolence is embodied in his 
comment on the widow's two mites thrown into 
the treasury. A set discourse upon charity would 
have died on the air ; but those two mites, with 
his blessing, have multiplied themselves millions 
upon millions of times, in little gifts and services 
which Without his words would have been thought 
not worth bestowing, but which in their sum total 
have undoubtedly far exceeded the great gifts and 
splendid services of the rich and strong. The 
story of the tribute-money has a singular perti- 
nence and beauty in this aspect. He was asked 
the ensnaring and perilous question whether it 
was lawful for a loyal Hebrew to pay tribute to 
Caesar. Had he discoursed on the rights and du- 
ties of rulers and subjects, he might have given 
anew a momentary agitation to the troubled wa- 
ters ; yet his words would have left no durable 
impression, and we probably should never have 
heard of them. But he asks to see the coin 
which was in as common use among the people 
around him as the half-dime is with us. " Whose 
head is this on the denarius?" "Caesar's." " You 
use his money, then ; you avail yourselves of the 
benefits of his reign ; you look to him or his 
government to guarantee the adequate weight and 
purity of the coin employed in your daily traffic. 



128 JESUS AND THE COMMON PEOPLE. 



Pay him, then, in his own coin. Give him the 
tribute which you virtually confess to be his due, 
when you make the money issued by his authority 
your ordinary currency." 

John records, indeed, some discourses which to 
an occidental mind seem less simple than those in 
the synoptic gospels ; but I doubt whether they 
were alien from the oriental habits of thought and 
speech, or were otherwise than clearly understood 
by those familiar with the Hebrew literature. 
These discourses, too, always spring naturally 
from the occasion. Thus nothing can be more 
simple in its inception and its whole train of 
thought than that discourse in which he speaks — 
in a series of figures bold to a Western, but by no 
means strange to an Eastern audience — of him- 
self as the bread of life. A large number of those 
whom he has fed in the desert gather about him, 
to see if he will not lead them in some seditious 
movement (and Galilee was then full of sedition) 
against the Roman government. He begins by 
telling them that they are seeking him, not be- 
cause they have seen in him the tokens of a 
teacher sent from God, but because he has satis- 
fied their hunger. " There is," he says to them, 
" better food than that which nourishes the body. 
Sush bread as I gave you in the desert sustains 
only a poor, frail, dying life. There is a bread 



JESUS AND TEE COMMON PEOPLE. 129 



that comes down from heaven and can feed the 
soul ; and I give, I am that bread." There are 
those present who cry in genuine soul-hunger, 
" Lord, evermore give us this bread." Nor does 
it appear that any who were present failed to un- 
derstand him. Those who had come to him with 
low and worldly aims learn from what he says 
that he is not the leader they want, and thej^ go 
away, and walk no more with him ; but those of 
the common people in whom he has already awak- 
ened hunger for the bread from heaven, only cling 
the more closely to him, and it is this very discourse 
which calls forth from the fisherman Peter, who 
evidently had drunk in the whole of it, the ardent 
confession, " Lord, to whom shall we go ? Thou 
hast the words of eternal life." 

We can easily see why the common people 
heard him gladly, when, in immediate connection 
with objects and events perfectly familiar to them, 
he was thus continually opening to them around 
and above their every-day life vistas of a life pure, 
noble, glorious, everlasting. 

The common people heard him gladly, because 
he spoke to them as one who had authority, — as one 
who knew what he said, and who thus had a right 
to be believed. Reasoning on abstract subjects is 
not suited to the common mind, nor is the appeal 
to outside authorities well adapted to popular con- 
6* i 



130 JESUS AND THE COMMON PEOPLE. 



viction or impression. When such authorities are 
in themselves entirely valid, they are very imper- 
fectly appreciated, and often greatly undervalued, 
by persons of no more than ordinary discernment 
or culture. But what one utters from his own 
manifest assurance, from his own evident con- 
sciousness and experience, has always a prepon- 
derant weight. We see this in the religious 
teaching of our time, even where speaker and 
hearers have equal reverence for Christ and for 
the Holy Scriptures. The preacher who merely 
strings together passages of Scripture as proof- 
texts for his doctrines, may have the passive 
acquiescence of his hearers, but produces no im- 
pression, nay, by soulless iteration, he weakens the 
sense of divine realities in those who feel their 
sacredness and power. He only can carry home 
the truths of the gospel to the hearts of his hear- 
ers, on whose own heart t\iej are engraved, who 
has tested them by living them, to whom they 
have become intuitions, to whom they would re- 
main none the less true were their primitive 
record swept away, and the holy name with 
which they are associated lost in oblivion. It is 
thus that the truth has been handed down in its 
freshness, vividness, and power, as it were in 
proof-impressions from the Saviour's heart ; and in 
this way there is a genuine apostolic succession, 



JESUS AND TEE COMMON PEOPLE. 131 



transmitted, not from the fingers' ends of official 
ordainers, but from the souls to which in every 
generation Christ has spoken with an authority 
that has won the allegiance of the understanding 
and the conscience, and in speaking to them has 
enabled them to kindle in other souls a faith, trust, 
and loyalty like their own. It is the specialty of 
Christ's teaching that he does not reason, but de- 
clares truth as from a certainty which nothing 
could make more certain, — speaks as one who 
knows, testifies as one who has seen, talks of the 
eternal Father, as the Son of Man consciously 
in the bosom of the Father, — of duty and right- 
eousness, as one who does always the things that 
please God, — of the everlasting life as of the life 
that he is actually living on the earth. Such teach- 
ing seemed strange and schismatic to the Rabbies 
and those who most frequented their schools ; 
for their instructions consisted in the citing of 
names and traditions, in ingenious, prolix, and dis- 
torting commentaries on texts of the law, and in 
minute and hair-splitting subtleties. The common 
people could have found as little pleasure as profit 
in such diatribes, and gladly resorted to one who 
derived his sole authority from God and heaven. 

The common people heard him gladly. This is 
one of the clearest tokens of the truth and of the 
divinity of his teachings. The simplicity and fre- 



132 JESUS AND THE COMMON PEOPLE. 



quent homeliness of these teachings have no 
clonht repelled some, who would fain have had 
from him profound discussions as to the divine 
nature, the ground of right, the functions of con- 
science, the essence and mode of the life to come. 
But such discussions would have been for the few, 
not for the many. If a teacher came from God 
with a broad mission to humanity, his instructions 
must of necessity have been adapted to the com- 
mon people ; for they are the overwhelming ma- 
jority of our race, and in all ages they have been 
the overwhelming majority of Christian believers 
and workers. The common people have always 
found in Jesus the guidance in duty, the support 
in trial, the hope in death that they have needed; 
and what multitudes have there been of them, who 
have been profoundly wise, but only in his wis- 
dom ; upright, true, and faithful, but only under 
his leading ; resigned and submissive, but only by 
the inbreathing of his spirit ; assured of the eter- 
nal life, but only as he has inspired their trust and 
hope ! 

The common people heard him gladly. We are 
all common people as to the ground covered by his 
teachings. The duties incumbent on us to God 
and man have in their principles, their motives, 
their spirit, no diversity corresponding to the dif- 
ferences of condition and culture. You cannot 



JESUS AND THE COMMON PEOPLE. 133 



specify a primal obligation that admits of any ex- 
ceptions. You can name none that belong to the 
highly endowed and privileged, but not to the 
simple and unlettered, — none that appertain to 
the lowly, and not to those who hold a superior 
position in the social scale. The Sermon on the 
Mount may all be lived out b}^ the laborer, the 
poor widow, the person whose intelligence and 
sphere of action are of the very narrowest ; and at 
the same time there is no life so large, so high, so 
extended in its relations and responsibilities, that 
it may not find here all that it is bound to be and 
to do. Still more, we can conceive of no broader, 
fuller, loftier law of duty for the redeemed in 
heaven, or for any created being in the universe. 
As regards our trials and our griefs, too, w T e are 
all common people. There is no resource for 
high or low, when the heart is overwhelmed, but 
trust in Almighty love, — no prayer that can bring 
an answer of peace, but " Father, thy will, not 
mine, be done." In the presence of the mighty 
leveller Death we are all common people. When 
the shadow of death seems near ; when the feet 
of those who have buried our kindred are at our 
own doors ; when we are conscious of passing 
rapidly down the graveward declivity, — it is not 
on any self-spun fabric that our hopes depend : 
we all alike, in our conscious imperfection and sin- 



134 JESUS AND TEE COMMON PEOPLE. 



fulness, and with the realm of the unseen close 
before us, look to him who incarnated on earth the 
forgiveness of heaven, who uttered with authority 
the words of eternal life, who pointed to the ever- 
lasting mansions in the Father's house, who said 
by the grave-side, as none other ever spake, " I 
am the Resurrection and the Life ; he that be- 
lieveth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he 
live ; and whosoever liveth and believeth in me 
shall never die." 



CHRIST'S TEMPTATION, ETC. 135 



XI. 



CHRIST'S TEMPTATION, CRUCIFIXION, AND RESUR- 



'HE entire life of Jesus was a fulfilment of 



these words. It was his mission to present 
the divine character in human form ; to show how 
a spirit in the image of God would encounter the 
burdens, temptations, and trials of human life ; 
to illustrate at once the mode and the issue, the 
conflict and the triumph. His life, too, is one ; his 
example, one, — woven of the same tissue from the 
beginning to the end. His character at each 
marked epoch of his history grew naturally from 
what he had been before, and determined what his 
next and all subsequent demonstrations of charac- 
ter should be. Moreover, his character must be 
copied, if at all, in its entireness. The robe of his 
righteousness cannot be put on in separate shreds 
and patches, but must be on the disciple as on. 



RECTION. 



(EASTER SUNDAY.) 



" / have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done.' 
John xiii. 15. 




136 



CEBIST'S TEMPTATION, 



the Master, " without seam from top to bottom." 
Many attempt to follow him in part, but awk- 
wardly, and to little purpose. There are times 
with us all when we would fain follow him ; but 
in stress of need we cannot find his footmarks. 
Thus under the pressure of calamity and bereave- 
ment, who would not gladly learn from him the 
lesson of resignation and filial trust ? But this is 
f ally given only to those who have first learned of 
him to serve and obey. Only those who have 
walked with him in sunshine and gladness can 
walk in the light of his countenance through the 
valley of the death-shadow. 

For the illustration of this thought I have selected 
three epochs of Christ's life, — the temptation, the 
crucifixion, the resurrection ; and while exhibiting 
their importance as separate portions of his exam- 
ple, I shall especially endeavor to show you their 
mutual relation and interdependence. 

That the temptation was an inward conflict, not 
an external transaction, is self-evident. Even if 
we can imagine the arch-fiend as endowed with 
power over our Saviour's body to carry him from 
place to place, still his presence in a personality 
that could be recognized would have made the 
temptation void. The narrative was, no doubt, 
the form in which our Saviour rehearsed to his 
disciples his own subjective experiences, his 



CRUCIFIXION, AND RESURRECTION. 137 



spiritual conflicts and triumphs, during the sojourn 
in the desert from which he came forth to his pub- 
lic ministry. 

The successive scenes of the temptation are pre- 
cisely those which belong to opening life ; to a pil- 
grimage as yet unclouded by disappointment and 
grief ; to our several life-missions, no less than to 
the world-wide and world-embracing mission on 
which he came. 

The first of the series was addressed to appetite, 
— " Command that these stones be made bread," — 
a suggestion enforced by the cravings of hunger 
and the yearning of what seemed necessity. Thus 
comes the temptation to the young of our day. 
The appetite is intensely strong, and the earnest- 
ness of desire makes the indulgence seem venial. 
The purpose is not to transgress the law, or to 
degrade the soul, but merely to gratify a longing 
which will not otherwise be appeased ; and the 
feeling at the moment is that there cannot be any 
great wrong in satisfying an appetite that God has 
implanted, even though it be with bread which he 
not only has not given us, but has prohibited to us 
under the severest sanctions and penalties. Here 
the only power of resistance is the sentiment em- 
bodied in our Saviour's reply, " Man shall not live 
by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth 
out of the mouth of God ; " or, rather, to reach the 



138 



CHRIST'S TEMPTATION, 



sense by a paraphrase, " Man's true life is that 
which is sustained, not by bread, but by obedience 
to all the commandments of God." No particular 
indulgence of appetite — nay, though it were the 
feeding of a body ready to perish — is necessary ; 
but to the soul — the seat of the only life worth 
living — it is necessary to obey God at all hazards. 

The second temptation is that of display and 
notoriety, — the casting himself down from the 
pinnacle of the temple in the sight of the gazing 
multitude. How exactly does this typify one of 
the strongest temptations of the young and un- 
afflicted in our time ! The passion for display, 
year by year, divides almost equally with sensual 
appetite the fall and ruin of unnumbered youth. 
To shine, to dazzle, to be wondered at, to overtop, 
to outdo, — oh ! for this vain and frivolous end 
how many and how endlessly diversified are the 
shams, the deceits, the frauds, the wrongs, without 
palliation and without remedy, that are perpetu- 
ally enacted and committed ! This paltry and 
pitiful ambition seems the incessant work, the 
shame that is gloried in, with multitudes whom 
God made for better things. It spreads a snare 
into which the most ingenuous are very liable to 
fall, and thus to become involved in overt guilt 
before they are fully aware of evil intent. With 
not a few it seems a second nature, overlaying 



CRUCIFIXION, AND RESURRECTION. 139 



and hideously deforming at every point the nature 
that God gave them. Its only remedy or preven- 
tive is a profound feeling of the stringency and 
sacred ness of the command quoted in the reply of 
Jesus, " Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God," 
— thou shalt not for thine own foolish ostentation 
or ambition trample on the divine law, and dare 
its certain and inevitable retribution. 

The third temptation comes a little later in the 
order of time, but is often stronger and more en- 
during than either of the others, — that of worldly 
acquisition, " all the kingdoms of the world, and 
the glory of them." As in our age, and especially 
in our country^ wealth is the surest token and the 
most efficient instrument of power, worldliness 
shows itself in the greed of gain fully as often 
as in the love of place and office, — the aim in 
both cases being substantially the same. How 
many there are whom we see absolutely worship- 
ping Satan, and grovelling in the dust and mire at 
his feet, to get as much of this world as they can ! 
There is no degradation to which they will not 
stoop, no sacrifice of self-respect too great, no 
subterfuge too mean, no mole-path too tortuous or 
slimy, for this one end of lucre. It is " the 
abomination of desolation standing where it ought 
not," in the very sanctuary, and receiving the 
most devoted service of body, mind, and soul from 



140 



CHRIST'S TEMPTATION, 



many who deem themselves pillars of the Church 
of Christ. No other passion so completely sucks 
into its vortex every faculty, power, and affection, 
or so entirely excludes from thought the nobler 
themes that belong to an immortal nature. Here 
the only possible antidote is that conveyed in our 
Saviour's reply, " Thou shalt worship the Lord 
thy God, and him alone shalt thou serve." A 
supreme and soul-filling object is needed to cast 
forth and to keep out that which is also supreme 
and soul-filling. God and Mammon least of all 
can be served together. Each will have the whole 
man, or no part of him. Neither can be served 
except with mind, soul, and strength. 

" It is written," was a part of our Saviour's re- 
ply in each instance, — written by the finger 
which never erases what it once writes, written 
in the same character with the times and courses 
of the stars, — absolute and eternal truth and law, 
which will not bend to the appetite, ambition, or 
cupidity of any individual subject of temptation, 
but to which one must yield, or suffer the pen- 
alty. It is the idea, thus expressed by Jesus, of 
certainty, immovableness, hievitableness in law, 
which we most of all need when we are strongly 
tempted. The vague idea of the tempted is that 
the law can be tampered with more easily than the 
wrong desire can be suppressed, — in fine, that the 



CRUCIFIXION, AND BESUBRECTION. 141 



law, though absolute in its terms, will be somehow 
evaded or suspended in their case. Hence the 
momentous importance and worth of an authori- 
tative "It is written/' — of a writing on the page 
of revelation, which shall be regarded as but a 
transcript from the constitution and fundamental 
law of the universe, and which can no more be 
blotted out, or made void in a single instance, than 
can the laws of gravitation or of planetary motion. 

These temptations which appertain to early and 
unstricken life, Jesus encountered and vanquished 
at the outset of his career ; and the result was 
precisely what the young are prone to dread as 
worse than death, — a life of self-denial, lowli- 
ness, and penury, — all which he might so easily 
have shunned. The bread that could grow under 
his hand was for famishing multitudes, while he 
hungered ; for the admiring crowds who would 
have swelled his train, had he catered for their 
admiration, were the captious Scribes, the carp- 
ing Pharisees, the supercilious Sadducees, then the 
mob that shouted " Crucify him," and the imbruted 
populace that hissed their blasphemies and curses 
into his dying ears ; and for " the kingdoms of 
the world and the glory of them " he had posses- 
sion of the robes he wore, and a license of sepul- 
ture in a rich man's tomb. 

But the end is not yet. Were this all, his 



142 



CHRIST'S TEMPTATION, 



choice in the temptation could not be justified ; 
for it determined the whole destiny of his life, and 
was the immediate cause of all that he endured, 
so that from the moment when he emerged from 
the desert he moved on under the ever-deepening 
shadow of poverty, grief, and death. The young 
and unafflicted shrink from the slightest disap- 
pointment, delay, depression, or loss, and feel as if 
the mere ideal phantasm of duty were not worth 
the surrender of any earthly good or joy ; while 
he accounted it worthy of lifelong and entire self- 
sacrifice. 

The crucifixion was the inevitable issue of the 
temptation, the choice which he then deliberately 
made ; and as we have seen in him the only safe 
example for those exposed to the perils of opening 
life, so we now behold in him equally our perfect 
pattern of submissive endurance under the se- 
verest afflictions that can enter into the lot of 
humanity. Bereavement, if not by death, yet 
worse, by desertion, denial, and treachery ; scorn, 
contumely, and insult, such as can never have been 
exceeded in atrocity and virulence ; protracted 
bodily torture ; every possible inducing cause of 
mental agony, — threatened with growing cer- 
tainty and severity throughout his public ministry, 
are now heaped together on Calvary, as if the 
windows of heaven had been opened and the 



CRUCIFIXION, AND RESURRECTION. 143 



fountains of the great deep broken up, to whelm 
with their blended flood the Man of Sorrows. 
Under this stress of calamity and suffering, that 
sacred heart is laid open to us ; we can hear its 
throbs and count its pulses. The veil is thrown 
back from the hour of woe and triumph in 
Gethsemane ; that divine soul shines forth in all 
its loveliness and glory on the cross. As in the con- 
flict with evil the Father's will had been appealed 
to, so now is it made the refuge and consolation 
in pain and anguish unspeakable. " Not my will, 
but thine be clone." " Father, into thy hands I 
commend my spirit." The same trust in Almighty 
Wisdom and Love as in the temptation, only 
varied in form to suit the new exigency. Then 
it was obedience to a righteous law ; now, sub- 
mission to a righteous providence. Then it was 
the panoply of an active warfare ; now, the de- 
fensive armor of perfect proof from which the 
arrows of affliction fall back blunted and pow- 
erless. It is an example that comes home to our 
experiences and needs, and presents our only 
support and solace in grief. To feel that the 
sorrow might have been heavier, to look forward 
to better days to come, or to brace the soul up by 
the mere inevitableness of what we are suffer- 
ing, — these, and all other resources of an earth- 
born philosophy, may impart a certain power of 



144 



CHRIST'S TEMPTATION, 



brave endurance, but can give no more than the 
momentary relief which a sick man gets by a 
change of posture without a diminution of pain. 
We need, like our Master, to look the trial or the 
grief full in the face, to know and feel the very 
worst that it is, or means, or threatens, and then 
to say in our hearts, " Father, this is thy work, 
and it must be my blessedness ; this cup is of thy 
mingling, and it must be for my health and my 
enduring good. Thy will, not mine, be done." 
Sorrow may, indeed, wear itself out, as disease 
sometimes does, yet not until it has left deep traces 
of itself in the soul's whole being, and impaired 
for all coming time its capacity both for effort 
and for enjoyment. But the only present and 
effectual remedy is this that is presented to us by 
our Saviour's example, — submission, not as to 
unavoidable evil, but as to the merciful will of the 
Father of infinite love. 

Here let us mark well the connection between 
the temptation and the crucifixion. It was the 
obedience of the former season that was repro- 
duced in the submission of the latter. It was 
because the thought of the Father had been con- 
stantly present in duty, that it merged all other 
thoughts in trial. The consciousness implied in 
the words, " Father, I have finished the work that 
thou gavest me to do," was precisely the same 



CRUCIFIXION, AND RESURRECTION. 145 



that breathed in that trusting prayer in the gar- 
den, in those last words of self-commitment on 
the cross. 

But " to what purpose," it might have been 
asked by some who stood by the cross, — per- 
haps it was thus that the two disciples were 
talking on the way to Emmaus, — " to what pur- 
pose is this example of a life wasted, thrown 
away ? A little yielding might have been to him 
an infinite gain. Let him at the outset have had. 
a wiser reference to his own interest; let him 
have offered some harmless concessions to the 
popular tastes and prejudices ; let him have made 
a little more show ; let him have stepped aside 
once in a while, instead of marching straight on in 
the very face and eyes of what he deemed wrong 
and evil, — he might have gained a name and 
influence, — he might have been efficient as a re- 
former, — he might have raised up a powerful 
sect, even among the very rulers and the Phari- 
sees, — he might have lived to see his cause 
triumphant, and have passed away in old age 
with universal reverence and honor. But now all 
that has come of his uncompromising resistance 
and his meek endurance is the utter failure of his 
plans, the almost universal hostility of the nation, 
a hard lot, a barbarous doom, a felon's death." 
This was sound reasoning while he lay in the 
7 j 



146 



CHRIST S TEMPTATION, 



sepulchre, and, did our hopes terminate with the 
grave, we might fitly reason thus, and should 
find ourselves absolved from all the more arduous 
demands of duty, from all sacrifice and self- 
denial. 

But " now hath Christ risen from the dead ; " 
and in no respect is his resurrection of more worth 
than as putting the crown on the example of his 
life, — demonstrating its divine excellence, and 
the entire safety of following it. If death ends 
all things, then we must judge of every course of 
action by its issues on this side of death. But if 
death is not a terminus ; if the life that seems to 
expire is to come up again ; if the current of 
moral causation flows on under the channel of the 
death-river, to reappear on the opposite bank, — 
then we must lengthen our view ; we must see 
what results in the unseen future are to flow from 
this or that course of action. 

When the powers of darkness have hunted our 
Saviour to his destruction, and laid him low in the 
dust of the earth, they certainly appear his supe- 
riors, and evil has for the time the upper hand. 
But how is all this changed, when like the mid- 
summer sun on the verge of the Arctic circle, he 
just dips below the horizon, and, behold ! from the 
twilight of his setting bursts the glorious dawn 
of his resurrection-day ! Now is raised a new 



CRUCIFIXION, AND RESURRECTION. 147 



issue. It appears that the power of life and death 
is not in the hands of moral evil or its abettors ; 
that they cannot kill ; that virtue, integrity, piety, 
lives on unharmed in death, as asbestos in fire ; 
and that it makes no manner of difference whether 
in any particular instance the right seem to suc- 
ceed or not in this world, so long as it is sure of 
success and triumph in the resurrection-life. 

The resurrection of Jesus, considered in this 
aspect, is of immense practical value, and not only 
so in times of persecution unto death for con- 
science' and goodness' sake, but even in quiet 
times, for you and me. Let it once be established 
that the peril of death is not to be encountered, 
and irremediable evil not to be incurred in re- 
sistance to temptation and the discharge of duty, 
the way is open for evading the next severest 
peril or trial, and then the next, till we should at 
length rest on the simple ground that the question 
of duty is always to be considered with reference 
to consequences, and that the right is never to be 
pursued except when we see that it is perfectly 
safe. But Christ's resurrection, by sweeping death 
out of the way, and making it of no account where 
duty is concerned, has much more swept the path 
clear of all other obstacles, and left for the only 
question to him who believes in a risen Redeemer, 
What would God have me do, or bear ? 



148 CHRIST'S TEMPTATION, ETC. 



Here, it seems to me, we may understand what 
Paul means by the power of Christ's resurrec- 
tion. Thus considered, it is a moral force of the 
intensest momentum and efficacy. It thus wrought 
upon the apostles, who, no doubt because it was 
with them a working force, always refer to it as 
the prime fact in the entire history of their Lord. 
Oh, that we might feel this power ! The voice that 
should come to us from the broken sepulchre is, 
Child of God, disciple of Christ, one thing alone 
concerns thee, — to know the will of thy Father. 
This known, pursue it without misgiving. Confer 
not with flesh and blood. Ask not whether it 
will bring a present revenue, or whether it in- 
volves inconvenience, loss, sacrifice, but only, Is it 
my duty ? Is it God's command to me ? If it 
be, it will prevail and prosper, — perhaps not in 
this life, — perhaps the earthly consequence of 
thy doing, as of thy Master's, must be to thy loss 
and harm. So be it then. It is only a question 
of time, of a few days more or less ; for the resur- 
rection-hour is at hand, and then only the true 
and the good shall triumph. The upright shall 
have dominion in the morning ; God shall redeem 
their souls from the power of the grave. 



A DOOR IN HEAVEN. 



149 



xn. 

A DOOR IN HEAVEN. 
(ascension-day.) 
"7 looked, and behold, a door was opened in heaven." — Rev. iv. 1. 

T3 Y the event which we commemorate to-day a 
door was opened, and remained thence on- 
ward open, in heaven. To Jews and Gentiles alike, 
death had before been a passage into a dreary un- 
derworld, and the only immortality believed in was a 
gloomy, subterranean life, hardly preferable to non- 
existence. Even the Elysian fields were sunless 
and joyless. The figment of their existence seems 
to have been but a clumsy endeavor to stave off 
the dread of annihilation. Better did it seem to 
wander as unembodied spirits in the region of eter- 
nal shadows and ever-brooding darkness, than not 
to be. Christ has lifted the thoughts of men from 
the underworld to the Father's house on high, — r 
has associated the immortal life with the glory of 
the firmament, with all that is bright and beautiful 
in nature, with all in our hearts that is aspiring and 
upward tending. 



150 



A DOOR IN HEAVEN. 



The door is open ; but we are slow to look in. 
We, with few exceptions, believe ourselves immor- 
tal, but take very imperfect note of the contents 
of our belief. Let us now obey the voice addressed 
to us no less than to the writer of the Apocalypse, 
" Come up hither, and I will show thee things 
which must be hereafter." 

The foremost and the most solemn thought con- 
nected with the future life is that it is we, our very 
selves, that are to enter it. It is a common belief, 
though perhaps seldom expressed in words, that 
there are to be changelings in the heavenly birth, — 
that the persons who die are not going to heaven, 
but that certain pure, angelic beings will be cre- 
ated, to bear their names and fill their places in the 
society of the blessed. That reckless sensualist 
cannot surely suppose that he, as he is, will be 
associated with adoring spirits in praise to God and 
homage to the Saviour. It is the last thing that 
he could wish or crave. A day so spent would be 
beyond his endurance. His first walk in the golden 
streets would make him long for his wonted joys, 
as did the ransomed Israelites for the flesh-pots of 
Egypt. That insatiable accumulator of lucre, whose 
only standard for right and duty, taste and senti- 
ment, is the money-scales, cannot possibly expect 
in his own person to enter the heavenly life. It 
would make him more wretched than he can be in 



A BOOR IN HEAVEN. 



151 



this world. Here his ruling aim is his resource and 
comfort in every trial and grief ; and if streams of 
wealth will only set in his direction, he cares little 
how events may shape themselves. What treasure 
can he have laid up in the Saviour's kingdom? 
That sluggish half-Christian, who is afraid of noth- 
ing so much as of following Christ closely enough 
to part company with those who care nothing at all 
for Christ, surely does not expect, in his own proper 
selfhood, to enter the home of the redeemed ; for he 
has many habits of thought and feeling which he 
knows would be out of place there, and his whole 
devotional tone is so languid and low that he could 
neither feel nor find sympathy among the adoring 
spirits before the eternal throne. 

I say nothing of reward or punishment. I know 
not if there be any, in the sense of arbitrary con- 
ferment or infliction. But I do know that neither 
reason nor Scripture makes the death-flood a font 
for baptismal regeneration, — that if we are to be 
immortal, it is our actual selves that are to live for 
ever ; and that we are often tempted to make of 
ourselves such beings as we would not wish, but 
should utterly loathe to be, for ever. 

Let it be borne in mind that, if we are to live 
after death, it cannot be, as here, under cover. 
Here we are known by bodily form and feature ; 
beneath the veil of the flesh much of our actual 



152 



A DOOR IN HEAVEN. 



character is hidden ; and while some neither wish 
nor Deed disguise, and are not unwilling to speak 
and act outwardly the whole inward life, whether 
for good or for evil, there are others who are willing 
to mask under a fair exterior thoughts, passions, 
and affections, of which the enforced avowal would 
whelm them with shame. When the body falls 
away, and the walls that here shut in the soul are 
trodden down in the dust of the grave, character 
must be what form and feature are now. In the 
destruction of what was outward, that which was 
within must become outward, manifest, open to all 
beholders ; and if there be that within us which 
for very shame we would not reveal on earth, we 
may well tremble lest it cannot be hidden in the 
spiritual realm toward which our rapid steps are 
tending, — lest it there be known and read of all 
without our ability to conceal it, — lest it place us 
in just that attitude before and among our fellow 
spirits which we would not for worlds hold with 
our fellow-men here. 

Mark: I am offering you no man-made dogma, 
no private interpretation of my own ; I am simply 
showing you the contents of the belief in immor- 
tality which most or all of you profess. The 
necessary inference from this belief is, that it be- 
hooves us all to be in heart and character what we 
are willing to be and to appear when we wake from 



A DOOR IN HEAVEN. 



153 



the death-slumber. We may be that now which 
we would be utterly unwilling to be then. We 
can be that now which we should rejoice with joy 
unspeakable to be then. Guileless, faithful, gen- 
erous, devout, Christ-like, we would crave to be, 
when no fleshly veil shall intervene between the 
ever open eye of God and the undying conscience 
which must lie naked and open before him. If 
you who live wholly for the pleasure, gain, or suc- 
cess of the passing day, and are conscious of no 
loftier aim, will only analyze your own idea of 
immortality, you cannot remain contented as you 
are, — you cannot but live as children of the resur- 
rection, and the pursuits which must be broken 
short off by death will seem to you beneath con- 
tempt, compared with that pursuit of knowledge, 
virtue, and piety, which may be continued all 
along the glorious way on which the redeemed 
walk with songs and everlasting joy. You, too, 
who are endeavoring to follow Christ, need, 
amidst the distractions of a busy and often care- 
cumbered life, the restraining, directing, hallowing 
power that lies in the sense of your continuous 
identity as you pass through the death-shadow. 
When you wake beyond it, you would fain ap- 
pear " without fault before the throne of God." 
You would crave to be found in full unity of 
spirit with your Saviour and his ransomed, to 
,7* 



154 



A BOOR IN HEAVEN. 



take up without halting the onward march, to 
sustain without drooping or discord the redernp- 
tion-song, of those who have gone before you. 
Think, then, what manner of persons you must be 
here, — how severe in your self-discipline, how 
broad in your charity, how fervent in your piety, 
how unworldly in motive, desire, and love. 

I dwell with a prolonged and reiterated empha- 
sis on this thought, because, while it has been 
sadly overlooked in the technical preaching of 
retribution, it comprehends all in retribution that 
is most fearful, all that is most glad and glorious. 
Could I only say to my own soul, daily and 
hourly, "As I live and die here, I must resume 
my being in the life to come, — the forces of 
character which govern me here must start me on 
my eternal career," — I could need no other, I 
could have no so efficient impulse in every, walk 
of duty, in every way of the divine service. 
Could I but make you all feel what you profess 
to believe, that, as you live and die, you are to 
live again, I hardly need preach any thing else, — 
the powers of the world to come would take such 
fast hold upon you, that they would mould your 
spirits and shape your lives in close and ever 
closer conformity to the spirit and life of the all- 
perfect Saviour. 

Another glimpse which we get through the door 



A DOOR IN HEAVEN. 



155 



opened in heaven is of the interviews and reunions 
in reserve for us in the spiritual world. How ap- 
palling, how unspeakably joyful, must they be ! 
What black shadows, what glorious lights do they 
reflect on our mutual influence here ! What reck- 
lessness is perpetually manifested in every form of 
evil agency ! The sensualist corrupts and crushes 
his victim, and still maintains an unblushing front, 
remains unstung by remorse, feels as if his crime 
had no future, and could be fully expiated by his 
ceasing from atrocious guilt as temptation slack- 
ens. He who lays the snare and fills the death- 
cup for his brethren, and whose gain is the ruin 
of body and soul, quietly casts the responsibility 
on those who are weak enough to pay him the 
wages of their folly, and even takes credit to him- 
self for a sobriety which enables him year after 
year to slay and divide the spoil, and so to roll 
his guilt up mountain-high. The man whose posi- 
tion gives intense power to his example, becomes 
the evil teacher and the betrayer of a multitude 
around him, and feels no compunction, though in 
full view of the mischief he has wrought. But if 
there be a life immortal, there must of necessity 
be a remembrance and recognition of earthly con- 
nections and experiences, a renewal of earthly 
society, with a clear and keen view of the current 
and the consequences of mutual influence. We 



156 



A DOOR IN HEAVEN. 



cannot bnt picture to ourselves the meeting of the 
seducer and his victim, the betrayer and the be- 
trayed, the Mammon-driven caterer and the man- 
acled and fettered slave of appetite, the teacher 
and the learner of every doctrine of devils, the 
man of corrupt and pestilential example and those 
infected by his guilt. Oh that this prospect might 
be seared into the souls that are preparing to real- 
ize it ! 

But, on the other hand, there is in these in- 
terviews, these reunions, beyond the shadow of 
death, an incentive of transcendent efficacy to 
every form of social duty, of beneficent influence, 
of charity for the bodies and the souls of men. 
How often are we disheartened, as we feel that in 
benevolent effort we are casting our seed-corn on 
the waters, and can never know in this world 
whether it germinates and ripens for the heavenly 
harvest ! In heaven we shall know our own 
sheaves ; and we believe that no one can go forth 
bearing precious seed, who will not find that he 
has a share in the ingathering. How precious be- 
yond estimate is the thought that there may be 
souls bound to us by ties of eternal benefit, — 
children of our faith, though not of our blood, — 
brethren of our adoption, though not of our house- 
holds, — those whom our counsel has guided, our 
entreaty restrained, our instruction brought to 



A DOOR IN HEAVEN. 



157 



Jesus, — those who will say to us in heaven, " You 
helped us thither ; but for you we might have per- 
ished by the way " ! Christians, who are laboring 
in your Master's vineyard, let this hope sustain 
you in every worthy effort for the souls for which 
God will not let you live in vain. Be contented, 
though the harvest spring not up at once in your 
sight. Believe that there will be glorious revela- 
tions in the communings of your heavenly home, 
which will show that your labor of faith and love 
has not passed away unrecognized by the Author 
and Giver of every good gift. 

Yet another prospect offers itself through the 
open door. Who of us is there that has not some 
of his dearest friends in heaven ? There are 
parents whose prayers for us anticipated the 
dawn of reason ; there are brothers and sisters 
called from our sides in the bloom of their beau- 
tiful promise ; there are the lambs taken from our 
folds for the altar-service in the upper temple. 
There are for some of us more in heaven of the 
innocent and holy that were very near our hearts, 
than }^et remain for our earthly solace and happi- 
ness. We hope to renew their sweet society, — 
to enjoy their undying sympathy and love. When 
we think of heaven, next to, or rather inseparably 
blended with, our near communion with our God 
and our Saviour, comes the thought of these sus- 



158 



A DOOR IN HEAVEN, 



pended ties of earthly kindred and affection. 
Should they not be pledges for our fidelity and 
earnestness, bonds of our allegiance, attractive 
forces drawing all our steps heavenward ? We 
would not be separated from them. We would 
crave that the household, dissolved by death, may 
by death be reunited. Shall we not, then, pursue 
with cheerful zeal, on this side of the veil, the 
path on which they are moving onward and up- 
ward in the unveiled light of heaven ? Oh, if we 
loved them ; if we still love them ; if their forms 
often recur to our saddened thoughts by day ; if in 
the visions of the night they seem to us white- 
robed angels, urging our laggard steps ; if our 
hearts tell us that our love for them was not born 
to die, — let their memory be a quickening power 
for every holy thought and worthy endeavor, — 
let their voices 

11 Reprove each dull delay, 
Allure to brighter worlds, and lead the way." 

Such are some of the contents, the necessary 
elements, of the immortality which we believe and 
crave. Such are some of the views through the 
door opened and left open in heaven by the 
ascending Redeemer. How suggestive of these 
thoughts are the recorded incidents of that sublime 
scene ! He rose to heaven in the self-same form 



A DOOR IN HEAVEN. 



159 



in which he had given his last mandates and his 
farewell blessing, the form in which he died ; and 
as we live and die, so shall we rise to the more 
intimate presence of God. He went to receive 
the kingdom purchased by his toil, agony, and 
blood ; and we shall, in like manner, go to the 
fruit of our deeds, the fruition of our works, the 
results of our example and influence. He parted 
from his disciples with the assurance, " Where I 
am, there shall ye be also ; " and we, too, shall 
pass hence, to renew the bonds of earthly kindred 
and love, to be gathered to those who have gone 
before us, to be followed by those we leave. 

Let our grateful thoughts revert to that bright 
morning, when the shout arose in heaven, " Lift 
up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lifted up, 
ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall 
come in." The shining path on which he went 
home to -God is our appointed way. The voice 
that lingered on the ears of the eleven as he was 
parted from them says ever to us, " Come up 
hither." Let our faith, our hope, our endeavor, 
press on toward the open door, where his welcome 
awaits us. 



160 



IDENTITY OF THE EARTHLY 



XIII. 



IDENTITY OF THE EARTHLY AND THE HEAVENLY 
LIFE. 

''Thy brother shall rise again." — John xi. 23. 

" r | brother," — the very being that had died, 



— the same in mind, sentiment, and feel- 
ing, in sympathy and love. This is the Christian 
idea of immortality, — an idea, not indeed dogmat- 
ically enunciated, but implied in all that Christ 
and his apostles say about the higher life, and 
especially in his own resurrection, unchanged in 
character, which he and they represent as typical 
of the resurrection of all men. 

On other occasions I have spoken of the identity 
of the risen with the dying man as the most potent 
of all dissuasives from evil, and of all motives to 
the development of the highest type of character. 
There is another aspect in which I would now pre- 
sent it. I think that to many sincere Christians 
the heavenly life is less attractive than it ought to 
be. They delight in the exercises of devotion ; 
but there are other loves and pursuits, consistent 




AND TEE HEAVENLY LIFE. 



161 



with piety, nay, even cherished by it, which con- 
tribute so largely to the dignity and the enjoy- 
ment of the present life that they can ill brook the 
prospect of yielding them np for ever, yet which 
they have never been wont to regard as forming 
equally a part of the heavenly life. They forget 
what is clearly symbolized by the tree of life bear- 
ing twelve manner of fruit, and yielding its fruit 
every month, — the boundless diversity of pursuits 
for which heaven may, and undoubtedly will, afford 
unrestricted scope and opportunity. 

Among these I will first specify the pursuit of 
knowledge. Can you believe the student's, the 
scholar's, the inquirer's aim and endeavor earth- 
bounded ? To the devout mind knowledge is the 
nurse of piety, the tracing of the embodied thought 
of the Infinite Intelligence, the identification of the 
divine attributes in the universe. Why should any 
department of this research be closed by the open- 
ing of the soul's prison-gates, — by the downfall 
of those walls of sense which only circumscribe 
thought and imagination? So far from this, it 
would seem so intrinsically probable as hardly to 
admit of doubt, that the direction which the mind 
has assumed and pursued with steadfastness in the 
obscurity and with the distractions of this world, 
will determine its favorite course where for dark- 
ness there shall be light and for hinderances helps. 

K 



162 IDENTITY OF TEE EARTHLY 



There the introspective philosopher may learn in 
his clarified consciousness and his beatific experi- 
ence the powers and the limitations of the finite 
mind, its laws and its methods, its relations to 
nature, to fellow-beings, and to its Author. There 
the student of the works of God may take the 
w T ings of the morning, may trace omnipresent law 
from bound to bound of the universe, or, with 
microscopic keenness of vision, may follow out the 
same omnipresent law in those minutest forms in 
which Infinite Wisdom has globed itself no less 
than in world, sun, and system. There he who has 
loved to explore Providence in history may have 
spread before him records of the Omnipotent Prov- 
idence in realms of being infinite to the finite, finite 
only to the Infinite Intelligence. 

What a contrast between the two states ! Here 
our ignorance grows upon our consciousness faster 
than our knowledge. In every field of research we 
reach impassable barriers, where we set up fence- 
words, general terms (so called), which are indefin- 
able, are but names for our nescience, and denote 
that with our present implements of investigation 
we can go no farther. " Lo ! these are a part of 
his ways, but how little a portion is known of him ! " 
is ever the humiliating confession of true science, 
which-, therefore, with instinctive modesty, calls 
itself philosophy, not wisdom, — the loving quest, 



AND THE HEAVENLY LIFE. 163 



not the realized attainment. There philosophy 
will ripen into wisdom. In our ever more intimate 
conversance with the Supreme Intelligence we 
shall gain ever profounder and broader views of 
his works and his providence ; the very faculties 
employed in praise and adoration will be avenues 
of knowledge ; while increasing knowledge will 
cherish ever more glowing worship and more fer- 
vent gratitude. 

I love, also, to think of our aBsthetic natures, 
our sensibility to beauty alike in the outward uni- 
verse and in art, as not earth-limited, but as born 
and cherished within us for heaven and for eter- 
nity. All true art is God-breathed. No attribute 
of the Creator is more richly manifested than his 
love of beauty. In him reside the archetypes of all 
the forms which it is our joy to behold, — of all the 
harmonies which float in upon the soul, whether 
from trumpet, harp, and organ, from human voice, 
or from the minstrelsy of field and forest. For all 
refined and elevated tastes he has furnished nutri- 
ment with the same open hand with which he 
lavishes his bounty for the supply of our lower 
needs. In sunset clouds, in verdure and bloom, in 
the kaleidoscopic landscape of the autumn forest, 
in sheets and mounds of driven snow and all the 
hoary majesty of winter, his beauty-breathing spirit 
c is ever drawing near to our souls, and awakening 



164 IDENTITY OF THE EARTHLY 



those sentiments which, even in the undevout, are 
almost worship, and to the heart that rejoices in 
his love are an unceasing incense, ritual, and an- 
them of praise. 

We trace God none the less in the beauty that 
flows from human hands. Man, in the pride of his 
art, is the copyist, not the creator, and least crea- 
tive in the zenith of his power. When I have 
looked on the pictures in which human genius 
appears most divine, I have felt the glory of man 
less than of God. I have recognized inspiration as 
clearly as in the God-breathed written word. I 
know that the forms and colors that thus grew 
under men's fingers were drawn from models fash- 
ioned by a higher than human art. Now, if I can 
be both glad and worshipful in presence of these 
copies, how can I suppose myself in the better 
life of my faith and hope insensible to their arche- 
types ? Rather, is not the capacity of a joy so 
pure and lofty awakened in us here, because there 
is infinite scope and food for it in every portion of 
that universe, in one of whose outlying provinces 
we are cradled, to become in the maturity of the 
resurrection-life free of all its realms ? Thus I 
must believe ; and when the author of the Apoc- 
alypse lays all of nature that we now behold under 
contribution, and piles splendor upon splendor to- 
shadow forth the glories of the new Jerusalem, I 



AND THE HEAVENLY LIFE. 165 



know that the very power of painting those gor- 
geous forms and tints on the retina of my inward 
vision is an authentic prophecy of more of beauty 
in heaven than eye has yet seen, or ear heard, or 
heart conceived. 

I would next speak of our capacity for friend- 
ship and affection as in no sense earth-limited, but as 
an undoubted prerogative of the resurrection-life. 
Certain it is that this capacity far transcends its 
earthly uses, — far exceeds our power of enjoying 
it and profiting by it here. I speak not now of our 
nearer loves, of our home-unions. I trust, indeed, 
that none who believe in immortality doubt that 
death will reunite parted families, and that those 
who have dwelt under the same roof on earth are 
invited to become tenants of the same mansion in 
heaven. But I refer now to a larger circle. The 
most tender home-love, so far from circumscribing, 
only enlarges and intensifies, the power of loving ; 
and most of all do those whose hearts are filled 
with the love of God have hospitable heart-room 
for " troops of friends." With this proclivity to 
form strong attachments, we are saddened, as we 
pass on in life, not only by the death-thinned ranks 
of our friends, by the strange faces in homes where 
we were made welcome, but hardly less by the 
multitudes of the living who win our dear regard, 
and then pass out of our sight ; of tenderly cher- 



166 IDENTITY OF THE EARTHLY 



ished friends, who are seldom within our reach ; 
nay, of those near us, whom we never meet with- 
out a glow of warm affection, yet of whose society 
our care-cumbered lives yield us but a rare and 
fragmentary enjoyment, which leaves us hungry, 
not satisfied. Friends of our travels ; friends in 
distant cities and lands ; friends in whom we have 
rejoiced, but on whom our eyes will never look 
again in this world, — how numerous are they! 
There is not one of them, on whose special claims 
to our dear remembrance our thoughts do not 
delight to linger. Oh, why are we made capable 
of loves so strong and so enduring in our hearts, 
yet so evanescent in our enjoyment of them? 
There are few features of our earthly life that 
seem in themselves so lamentable as this. For my 
own part, I would rather never make a new friend, 
than have so little revenue from the greater num- 
ber of my friends as can accrue to me in this 
world. 

But I rejoice to read in this very susceptibility 
to friendship, in this power and tendency to mul- 
tiply the bonds of spiritual kindred and affinity, 
the assurance that we are laying up treasures for 
our heavenly life, providing friends that shall be 
ours for ever. There will be in heaven time enough 
and room enough for all ; and who can say how 
essential to the intimate union of souls beyond the 



AND TEE HEAVENLY LIFE. 167 



reach of change and sorrow may be common re- 
membrances of this our birth-world, with its vicissi- 
tudes, griefs, and separations? We all know that, 
it is precisely the portions of our experience which 
have the least of the stability and repose of heaven 
that most endear us to one another here. Let us 
feel, then, that we lose nothing and risk nothing by 
these attachments that seem so brief and fruitless ; 
and whenever the thought of some dear friend long 
unseen, and perhaps never to be seen again upon 
earth, comes over us with almost painful vividness, 
let it be as a breath on the wind-harp of prophecy, 
— let fond memory merge itself in hope, — let our 
hearts turn for their satisfaction to that home 
where, within 

" Bright gates inscribed, No more to part, 
Soul springs to soul, and heart unites to heart." 

Such are some of the gladdening inferences from 
the identity of man dying and risen, — of the soul 
on earth and in heaven. 

Think not that I have lost sight of him whose 
words gave the text for my discourse. So far from 
it, I have only been exploring with you provinces 
of the heavenly inheritance assured to us by him 
alone. I cannot forget that it is only under Chris- 
tian auspices that immortality, reasoned about and 
speculated upon in other quarters, has been the 



168 EARTHLY AND HEAVENLY LLFE. 

object of undoubting expectation. At the base 
of Christ's broken sepulchre is planted the ladder 
from earth to heaven, on which we mount with 
firm and steady tread, on whose very uppermost 
rungs we find solid foothold, and from which we 
can survey at leisure the home that shall be ours, 
map out in legitimate imaginings our several plots 
in the garden of the Lord, behold the rays that 
gleam from the golden walls and the jasper throne," 
and catch the ever-recurring burden of the song 
of the ransomed host, " Worthy is the Lamb that 
was slain to receive power, and riches, and wis- 
dom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and 
blessing." 



THE LORD'S SUPPER. 



169 



XIY. 

THE LORD'S SUPPER. 
"This do in remembrance of me." — Luke xxii. 19. 

r J ^HE holy table is spread. A large proportion 
of those urged to attend the service by every 
consideration of gratitude have retired ; and for the 
full congregation we have a diminished assembly, 
scattered here and there, or clustered in close vicin- 
ity to the sacred emblems. These who remain are 
not insincere. Many of them are tenderly devout, 
and find the season one of profound feeling. But 
with others, is it too much to say that the service 
is a conscientiously observed formalism? " Jesus," 
they say to themselves, " was the greatest bene- 
factor of the human race, and it is no more than 
fitting thus to commemorate him in accordance 
with his request on the eve of his death." But 
they, though persons of excellent character, are 
not sensitive as to character, or supremely solici- 
tous for its growth. They rather feel as if they 
had reached a safe spiritual resting-place, whence 
temptation will not dislodge them, and whence, in 
8 



170 



THE LORD'S SUPPER. 



due time and in the natural course of events, they 
will be translated to the church in heaven. They 
are not active in religious charities, nor expansive 
in their sympathies, nor disposed to be tolerant 
of those out of the pale of respectable goodness. 
They would not, indeed, borrow for their altar- 
service the words which Jesus puts into the mouth 
of the Pharisee in the temple, " God, I thank thee 
that lam not as other men;" for precisely these 
words rest under the Saviour's ban : yet in their 
hearts they think that the Pharisee was more than 
half right. They have more of self-complacency 
than of self-distrust, — more of contentment than 
of aspiration. There is a large alloy of selfishness 
in such devotional feeling as they possess ; and 
now, at the table of commemoration, each brings 
his own little gill-cup, and expects that the water 
from the well of salvation will flow into it for his 
own drinking ; while he never thinks of proffering 
a draught for his soul-thirsty neighbor. 

No wonder is it that to those who come thus to 
the table of communion the service seems cold and 
dry ; that by no process of self-excitation can they 
lash themselves into fervor ; and that they create 
a bleak, chilly atmosphere for those of warmer 
hearts. Not even a drop trickles into their little 
cups, though for the whole hour the burden of ex- 
hortation and prayer be, " Spring up, O well ! " 



THE LORD'S SUPPER. 171 



Such persons are prone to find fault with the 
mode of administration. " If we could only kneel 
instead of sitting; or go to the table instead of 
having the sacred emblems brought to us ; or if 
the congregation were not dismissed before the 
communion ; or if we celebrated it at a different 
time from the stated season for public worship, — 
we might have the vivid feeling which now we 
cannot conjure up." But they are mistaken. A 
different mode of administration might for two or 
three times awaken some semblance, or rather car- 
icature of life, as a galvanic battery will for a brief 
season renew muscular motion in a corpse. But 
in a little while death, in the former as in the latter 
case, would resume all its rights. 

The form is of no vital significance. There is 
no mode of administration under which there has 
not been icy coldness ; none, under which hearts 
have not glowed and burned as the Saviour became 
more intimately known to them in the breaking 
of bread. Our method presents some grounds of 
preference, — in part, because it is so flexible, — in 
part, too, because it has the prestige of venerable 
antiquity ; for in the earliest Christian times the 
disciples sat at the communion, as we do, and the 
minister used no prescribed form, except as he 
rehearsed our Saviour's words at the institution of 
the Supper, but in exhortation and prayer followed 



172 



THE LORD'S SUPPER. 



the promptings of the spirit at the time. Kneeling 
at the communion is not in itself objectionable; 
but it is of later date. It began when the eucharist 
from a holy supper became a sacrifice, and the con- 
secrated emblems, from symbols of the Lord's body 
and blood, came to be regarded as a host (hostid)^ 
that is, a victim, by the imagined transformation 
under the priest's hands of bread and wine into 
flesh and blood. But, as I have said, the mode is 
of secondary concern. It is the spirit that gives 
life to any and every form ; and if our form is cold 
and dead, it is because we bring to it hearts that 
are cold and dead. 

My friends, I have made a strong statement, — 
for us, I would fain believe, over-strong ; for as we 
meet here, I cannot but feel that there is among 
us some hopeful glow of the altar-flame that should 
be kindled in our hearts. But so far as, here or 
elsewhere, there is a sense of the lifelessness and 
inadequacy of this service, it is due to the preva- 
lence in a greater or less degree of the spiritual 
condition which I have described. We may vitalize 
our service. We may make it the centre, the in- 
spirer, the feeder of the best that there is or can 
be in us ; and so far as we do this, we shall diffuse 
all that we feel, shall multiply the living gospels 
that we are, shall draw into our circle many who 
now contentedly remain outside of it, and shall be, 



THE LORD'S SUPPER. 



173 



as all true disciples ought to be, propagandists, — 
by example and influence, if not in word, preach- 
ers of Christ and his religion. Let us, then, con- 
sider some of the elements of thought and feeling 
which we should especially bring to the holy table, 
and cherish by this service. 

Our first thought here is gratitude, not to the 
benefactor of the race, but to your and my best 
friend, — to him to whom our individual indebted- 
ness is no less than if any one of us were the sole 
recipient of his benefactions. We stand in awe- 
stricken admiration by the sea-side, as the sun rises 
in golden radiance from the ocean ; or on the hill- 
top, as he sinks among clouds, glorious as if they 
floated in from the very presence-chamber of the 
Creator. But in the noonday light, all-revealing, 
all-penetrating, reflected upon us from unnumbered 
objects of use and beauty, we think but little of its 
source. So is it in our high noon of Christian 
privilege. The light which, had we lived when 
the Sun of Righteousness first rose, we should 
have traced to him alone, is reflected upon us from 
home, from society, from literature, from every 
department of life, from numerous examples of 
excellence on record, or within our circle of famil- 
iar knowledge ; and we are constantly in danger 
of forgetting whence it comes. But at the holy 
table, above all, should our thoughts be fixed on 



174 



THE LORD'S SUPPER. 



him through whom every good gift of God has 
been either bestowed, or adapted to our use, or 
rendered immeasurably more precious. There is 
not an ascription of praise for any blessing apper- 
taining to our earthly life or our immortal being 
that should not here be centred in Christ, and 
flow to God through him. Only let us feel this, 
as we can verify and must believe it, — there need 
be no forcing up of grateful thoughts ; our thanks 
will flow too full and strong for utterance, and the 
feeble words of our praise will be but the symbol 
and token of emotions that far transcend their 
utmost meaning. 

But this is not all. We profess here to enter 
into communion with the personal Christ. He 
stands before us in peerless loveliness and beauty, 
— the ideal of humanity actualized ; all of the 
divine that can irradiate the frail fleshly taberna- 
cle, — the model which we maybe always copying, 
and still find more to copy, — all virtues, all graces, 
all seeming contrasts of goodness blended, — the 
strength and glory of perfect manhood, the gentle- 
ness and tenderness of perfect womanhood, — the 
majesty of heaven, the little amenities and wayside 
charities that adorn and bless the humble inter- 
course and sheltered walk of common earthly life. 
What is communion but self-comparison? And 
what is the comparison of self with him but the 



THE LORD'S SUPPER. 



175 



revealing of deficiencies to be supplied, of traits of 
his spirit too faintly transcribed in our own, of 
features of his character that need to be more 
fully manifested in our lives ? Let, then, his piety 
inflame the languor of oars. Let his unworldli- 
ness put to shame our engrossment in things out- 
ward and transient. Let his diligence stimulate 
our active powers. Let his serenit} 7- rebuke our 
peevishness or irritability. Let his career of self- 
denial and sacrifice cry reproach upon our selfish- 
ness. Let his loving spirit chase all bitterness 
from our hearts. Let there be here a faithful self- 
searching and trial of ourselves as before his solemn 
judgment-seat ; and be it our aim and endeavor 
now and always to carry hence views of his char- 
acter that shall make our own more like his, influ- 
ences of his spirit that shall mould ours more 
entirely after his pattern. Thus shall we feel and 
manifest a growth in grace. Ours will no longer 
be a merely negative goodness ; but there will be 
traits of Christlikeness that shall proclaim us of his 
lineage and kindred. Moreover, though we seek 
not human praise, we thus shall have just cause of 
rejoicing in the added ascription of praise and glory 
to Christ through us, which must ensue, if it be 
seen that our communion with him is not a mere 
traditionary rite, but a transforming power. Were 
this witnessed generally in the professed disciples 



176 



THE LORD'S SUPPER. 



of Christ; were there, not mere abstinence from 
evil, but a radiating beauty of holiness in the lives 
of those who meet at his table, — we should no 
longer mourn the vacant seats, the few accessions 
to our fellowship. Those who aspire after goodness 
would seek their nourishment here ; those who 
thirst for what the world caonot give would resort 
hither for the living water that ever flows from the 
fountain opened on Calvary. 

But there is yet more. The church has become 
too much like a close corporation, rejoicing in its 
privileges, but chary of them and slow to impart 
them. There is no greater outrage to the spirit of 
Christ than, the seeming divorce of philanthropy 
and the church, — seeming, I say, not real ; for 
the philanthropy outside of the church has all been 
born and nurtured within it, and grows acid, or 
bitter, or truculent, as soon as it turns its back on 
its rightful home. The great philanthropic associ- 
ations of Christendom are, spiritually speaking, 
nuisances ; yet they are necessary evils, which 
have sprung up, because the church, as such, had 
ceased to do its own proper work, — because the 
communion-table had ceased to be the bureau of 
Christian charity. If the church better understood 
itself, its mission, and its Master, the enterprises for 
the deliverance of men from sin and misery, instead 
of being thrust out of what is and ever will be 



THE LORD'S SUPPER. 



177 



their only birthplace, — instead of being managed 
by exterior agencies, public demonstrations, and 
windy platform oratory, would be taken right into 
the heart of the communion-circle, counselled for 
and prayed for before the emblems of the redemp- 
tion-sacrifice, urged by motives drawn from the 
Saviour's dying and undjung love, energized by 
the spirit of his cross, proclaimed by his ministers 
as the crusade in which every disciple must bear 
arms, so long as there are the wretched, the suffer- 
ing, and the sinning within the reach of charity. It 
was thus with the primitive church. Contributions 
were then taken up at the communion-service, not 
only for immediate charities, but for the relief of 
those even of other tongues and in distant lands 
who were suffering in the common cause ; while 
from the then plentifully furnished table generous 
portions were carried by the deacons to the homes 
of those absent by reason of infirmity, and espe- 
cially of the poor. 

I can conceive of no cause appertaining to man's 
well-being, which ought not to be precious enough 
to a Christian's heart to be worthy of a place in 
those holiest thoughts and most fervent prayers 
which cluster around this service ; while nothing 
can bring us so near the Saviour's heart as blend- 
ing counsels and plans of Christian work for our 
brethren with our solemn commemoration of the 
8* L 



178 



THE LORD'S SUPPER. 



love stronger than death, which bowed his head 
and opened the fountain of his blood. Every 
Christian is, so far as he is a Christian, a philan- 
thropist, — a helper, to the measure of his opportu- 
nity, in that work of saving and blessing man in 
body and soul, in which Christ wrought till the 
gates of heaven opened for him, and which at the 
very moment of his ascension he left in charge to 
his disciples. 

Innovation in exterior forms is difficult and un- 
desirable, when not spontaneous ; for when the 
spirit outgrows a form, it will of its own motion 
enlarge it, or replace it by a better. But I would 
that we should do all that we can to bring back 
this loving spirit into our communion-service. Let 
us here offer prayer and thanksgiving as heartily 
for others as for ourselves. Let us bring emphati- 
cally before our thoughts the all-embracing love of 
the Saviour, and seek in this service to cherish a 
love like his. Let us recall here what we have 
done and consider what we are doing, as trustees 
of his parting charge. Let us call to mind the 
specific work around and before us, and hallow it 
and ourselves for it by the devotions of this sacred 
hour. Let our altar-service always send us forth 
with new zeal, patience, and hopefulness, for our 
several departments of service in the vineyard of 
our Lord. 



THE LORD'S SUPPER. 



179 



Gratitude, self-searching, brotherly love, — these 
should be blended in oar communion-service, and 
with these the service will be, not a form, but a 
power. Let each of us make oar gathering here, 
not an hour of mildly grateful repose in a sacred 
place, but a season of the warmest thanksgiving it 
is in his heart to offer, of the most faithful dealing 
with his own spirit in the fall light of the Saviour's 
example, and of vows and plans of usefulness in 
which he will follow his Master as he went about 
doing good. If we will thus keep the feast, I know 
that it will from month to month be more and 
more precious to us, and that through what it does 
for us it will be more and more honored, rever- 
enced, and observed by those whom we would so 
gladly welcome to our household of faith. . 



180 WORTH OF OUR RESPONSIBILITIES. 



XV. 



THE WORTH OF OUR RESPONSIBILITIES. 

"Well, ihou good servant: because thou hast been faithful in a very 
little, have thou authority over ten cities." — Luke xix. 17. 

OOCIETY, in a healthy state, rewards its best 



servants by giving them more to do. We, 
indeed, in this country, are largely trying the op- 
posite method, making inexperience a preferred 
qualification for office, and often placing a man in 
higher because he has failed in lower trusts. But 
this is the most perilous of all the follies of Young 
America, and, if it lasts, the republic cannot last. 
The normal treatment of faithful servants is to put 
them to ever more arduous service, and this, so 
long as the powers of body and mind remain in 
working order. 

But widely different notions of the reward of 
the faithful in heaven have somehow obtained ex- 
tensive currency. How "often is the heavenly life 
spoken of as pre-eminently a state of repose, an 
eternal rest ! — pure and devout, indeed, pervaded 
by the spirit of perpetual worship, yet monotonous 




WORTH OF OUR RESPONSIBILITIES. 181 



and inactive. This idea predominates in the mort- 
uary inscriptions in the Roman catacombs and in 
those preserved in the Vatican, in which In pace 
(at peace) occurs, I think, oftener than any othei 
motto. Such thoughts of death and heaven re- 
ceived, undoubtedly, their first intense stress in the 
persecutions to which the primitive Christians were 
subjected, when there was very little that they 
could do, while their capacity of endurance was 
strained to the last degree, and their first restful 
moment often was that of the death-slumber. The 
tradition of those times has been transmitted to 
our own, and a blessed and holy tradition it is as to 
the sufferings, troubles, and sorrows of this mortal 
life. It has its due place in the symbolism of the 
New Testament, especially in the Apocalypse, 
which was probably written during the persecu- 
tion under Domitian, and when the author him- 
self was leading a life of banishment, during which 
he was precluded from all opportunities of active 
service in the cause of his Master. But this idea 
is so far from being the foremost Christian rep- 
resentation of heaven, that it is not in a single 
instance alluded to by our Saviour. On the other 
hand, larger trusts, higher activities, more ex- 
tended responsibilities, constitute the habitual and 
favorite element in the glimpses of the heavenly 
life which he gives us. In the parable from which 



182 WORTH OF OUR RESPONSIBILITIES. 



I have taken my text, the government of ten cities 
— no easy task and burden — is the reward of him 
who has made his one pound ten. In the parable 
of the talents, to him who has made the five tal- 
ents ten, it is said, not, " Enter into the rest that 
thou hast earned," but, " Thou hast been faithful 
over a few things ; I will make thee ruler over many 
things." Thus, too, it is promised to the apostles, 
for their having forsaken all to follow Christ, that 
they shall judge or rule the twelve tribes of Israel, 
that is, of the Christian Israel, the spiritual king- 
dom of their Lord. 

Is it asked, How can this be ? What work, what 
trust, what charge can the heavenly life offer to 
those who are found worthy of it ? I would answer 
that, if this life be, as we are prone to deem it, a 
training-school for heaven, there must be work in 
heaven. In nothing is Christian principle more 
efficient than in developing working power. The 
world's greatest workers have been the elect among 
its saints, and, conversely, the most eminent saints, 
with rare exceptions, have been among the great- 
est workers. Then, again, how know we that in 
the essential principles of its economy the future 
life will differ from the present ? Here the Divine 
Providence is, throughout, a system of agencies. 
All that God does for man he does by man ; and 
no other gift of his is so blessed, so worthy our pro- 



WORTH OF OUR RESPONSIBILITIES. 183 



foundest gratitude, as the capacity of giving, — 
the power of counsel, influence, beneficence. In 
heaven, if there are gifts, why not givers also ? If 
there are sources of happiness, why not those 
through whom they flow ? If there is a benignant 
ministry from heaven to earth, why may not its 
method be symbolized by the ladder of the patri- 
arch's vision, with the ascending and descending 
angels — earth-born angels, all of them — laden 
with needs and supplications from below, with 
blessings from on high ? We know not, indeed ; 
but when we consider that all beneficent agency 
is, in its last analysis, from soul to soul, we cannot 
conceive that such agency is restricted by a condi- 
tion of being more intimately spiritual. 

But it is not my purpose now to dwell on 
these mysteries of the higher life which are 
beyond our scope. I want to speak to you of the 
worth of our responsibilities in this life. They are 
often spoken of as a weariness and a burden. We 
pity ourselves and one another for them. We dep- 
recate them, evade them, throw them off. If we 
were wise, we should thank God for them, and 
ask him for more. For, 

First, they imply power, and we all love power. 
There are none of us who do not like to exert it, 
and to know that it has been felt. Cruelty is, in 
most cases, a wanton exertion of power rather 



184 WORTH OF OUR RESPONSIBILITIES. 



than conscious inhumanity. Caprice and way- 
wardness are, for the most part, sporadic forth- 
puttings of power, with the purpose of making 
others recognize and feel it. Wealth is sought 
and prized more for the power it gives than for 
all other ends. Now he who evades responsibility 
lacks the persistent and satisfying consciousness 
of power, and must make spasmodic trials of his 
strength to convince himself that he is not utterly 
impotent. But he who assumes and discharges 
faithfully all the trusts that the Divine Providence 
devolves upon him, knows that he possesses and 
exerts an influence, — that there are in him en- 
dowments of substantial value, — that in the sum 
of humanity he is an integer, not a cipher, — a 
being holding an important position among his fel- 
low-beings. 

Responsibility, in the next place, is a source of 
power, which grows onty by exercise, and always 
grows by exercise. Whatever one does normally, 
S}^stematically, not only enhances his ability to do 
that one thing well, but enlarges his capacity of 
effort in other directions. The talents well-used 
are not worn, but increased, by attrition, — not 
lost, but multiplied, by spending. Time profitably 
filled becomes elastic ; and the hours which seem 
too short for the busy idler, exceed their normal 
length to the consciousness of him whose life- 



WORTH OF OUR RESPONSIBILITIES. 185 



work glows and grows under his hands. Habit 
is the best economizer of time and power. Trusts 
discharged with method and system create fixed 
habits of business and of duty; and it is the 
essence of habit to require less and less mental 
effort for the performance of its individual acts, 
and so to release a certain amount of brain-power 
for other uses. Thus, as the faithful steward has 
more and more committed to him, his capacity 
increases with his trusts, his mind grows to its 
added work. 

We have still farther reason to be glad of 
our responsibilities, and thankful for them, in- 
asmuch as they carry with them the conscious- 
ness of being personally useful ; and as to this, 
above all other forms of beneficence, we employ 
no poetic license, but speak literal truth, when we 
say that it is twice blessed. He who in any way 
does good to others does still greater good to him- 
self. The imperial glutton craved a hundred pal- 
ates, that he might multiply indefinitely his coarse 
indulgence. His brutal wish typifies the spiritual 
experience of him who occupies a beneficently 
responsible position in society. He enjoys in the 
person of every one to whom he is a minister of 
good. He has as many sources of happiness as 
there are fellow-beings for whom he makes life 
happier and better. He has as many occasions of 



186 WORTH OF OUR RESPONSIBILITIES. 



high felicity as he has of beneficent duty. We 
may, without irreverence, denominate his experi- 
ence in this regard absolutely divine. We deem 
God supremely happy. Is he not so, because his 
tender mercies are over all his works ? And must 
we not think of every sentient being that enjoys 
his benignity, of every kind provision in the uni- 
verse of matter and of mind, of every beneficent 
act of his administration, as contributing to his 
eternal and immutable felicity ? 

Still farther, in assuming the responsibilities 
that lie around and before us and woo our service, 
we are not only entering into the joy of our God, 
but are making ourselves coworkers with him in 
his loving government of the universe. Poor as 
we are of ourselves, we are almoners of the ex- 
haustless wealth of his bounty. We hold on earth 
the office which we are wont to attribute to the 
angels of his presence in heaven. 

I would next ask, Is not responsibility, assumed 
as at God's bidding, and discharged as in his 
sight, the very highest form of devotion ? It is 
often said by persons who undervalue the formal 
exercises of piety, Labor are est orare (To work 
is to pray). This is not always true, but it 
ought to be, and it will be, if there be also 
the prayer of the lone hour, and of the heart 
which expressly invokes the divine blessing. It 



WORTH OF OUR RESPONSIBILITIES. 187 



is always true of him who feels that he is serv- 
ing God in the charge and trust committed to 
him, and who seeks to acquit himself " as ever 
in the great Taskmaster's eye." He prays 
while he works, and prays by working, and not 
only receives, but under the providence of God 
creates, the answer to his prayer. He is devout, 
pre-eminently so, even though he seem not to 
pray. There are many loyal men and women, 
who make little profession, it may be, of piet}^, 
but who thus pursue the way of their daily life, 
with a sense of responsibility, to man indeed, but 
much more to God, and whose life-work is a per- 
petual altar-service ; and I cannot but believe 
that he to whom all hearts are open accounts 
these as among the nearest to himself, and reckons 
every act of loyal fidelity to their trusts as if it 
were a fervent prayer at the mercy-seat. 

In fine, conscientious faithfulness to one's re- 
sponsibilities is the highest of all titles to favor 
with God and with man. It is the very noblest 
type of character. It is at once single and multi- 
form. It is in itself a distinct object of purpose, 
endeavor, cultivation ; while it includes or subsi- 
dizes in its service almost every conceivable trait 
of moral and spiritual excellence. It implies self- 
government; for no one can administer that which 
is without, unless his own soul be at his own com- 



188 WORTH OF OUR RESPONSIBILITIES. 



mand, — kindness of heart; for where this is want- 
ing, even integrity uses short weight and scant 
measure, — piety Go d ward ; for this is the holy 
oil which alone can feed the lamp of duty with an 
unflickering and perennial flame. We thus see 
why, in numerous instances, our Saviour represents 
fidelity to one's trust or stewardship as the sum of 
all duty and the climax of excellence. It should 
be the foremost aim of our spiritual ambition. All 
other gifts and graces, if not subservient to this, 
are of little worth. Even sincere and strong relig- 
ious feeling, if it issue not in this, is but self- 
deceit in one's own consciousness, and atrociously 
disgusting and mischievous in its profession and 
utterance, especially when, as has been the case in 
some striking instances in public life, it is em- 
ployed to cover up cowardice, falsehood, and even 
perjury. One may, indeed, most fittingly crave 
a genuine fervor of spirit, and a corresponding 
power of manifestation and utterance for the ben- 
efit of those around him ; but these may be want- 
ing where the heart and the life are true and 
loyal. Most of all, therefore, will he who has 
wisely learned of Christ, so discipline his own spirit, 
so seek the guidance and support of the Eternal 
Spirit, and so govern his daily life, that he may 
say, in yielding up his last earthly trust, " Father, 
I have done to the best of my ability what thou 
gavest me to do." 



WORTH OF OUR RESPONSIBILITIES. 189 



In representing responsibility as not a burden, 
but a blessing and a joy, I am reminded that there 
are those who have a morbid dread of responsibil- 
ity as an evil to be shunned. An evil it is, when 
one has not loyalty or energy enough to meet its 
demands and endure its strain. But I know of no 
person of mature capacity who is more to be pitied 
than the man or woman who has no responsibilities, 
no sphere of service, nothing to do for the common 
good, — a drone in the hive where there is or ought 
to be work for all. There are not a few who lack 
responsibilities alone to make them happy. They 
have, it may be, no outward circumstances of dis- 
comfort, no moral obliquities to give them shame 
and trouble. They, perhaps, have a keen sense of 
religious obligation, and are in powers of mind and 
in qualities of heart admirably well fitted for in- 
fluence, usefulness, extended charge and weighty 
trust. But they are unhappy, or the prey of fre- 
quent ennui, they know not why, — yet it is per- 
fectly obvious that it is because their talents are 
wrapped in a napkin or buried in the ground, in- 
stead of being put to use. I have known instances 
in which such persons, late in life, have discovered 
this secret of a lifelong weariness and unrest. 
Roused to beneficent activity by some peculiar 
stress of circumstances, they have found, in cares 
and burdens which they would once have regarded 



190 WORTH OF OUR RESPONSIBILITIES. 



as untempered misery, a happiness of which they 
had not dreamed before. There may be among 
those whom I address, some one to whom, for his 
content, peace, and happiness, it only needs to be 
said, Put yourself in relations of trust and duty 
with your fellow-beings. Make yourself what God 
means that you should be, an instrument in his 
hands for doing some part of his work of love. 
Seek your happiness by an active stewardship of 
what God has given into your charge, not that you 
should merely keep it, but that you should use it 
and make it grow. 

As for those of us who have important trusts, 
heavy cares, responsibilities under which we are 
sometimes ready to sink, and to exclaim, Who is 
sufficient for these things ? let us remember that, 
however we may distrust ourselves, we may trust 
him who has given us our stewardships for the 
counsel and the strength that shall be adequate to 
our need. Let us thank him that he has so favored 
and honored us as to make us his stewards ; and 
thank him, too, for the assurance that the diligent 
and conscientious steward in leaving this world 
shall resign his charge only for a larger trust, — 
that, faithful in a few things, he shall be made ruler 
over many. 



CHRIST'S YOKE AND BURDEN. 



191 



XVI. 

CHRIST'S YOKE AND BURDEN. 
"My yoke is easy, and my burden is light." — Matt. xi. 30. 

TESUS lays no yoke, imposes no burden upon us. 

We have yokes laid upon us by the necessity 
of our being ; we have taken upon ourselves bur- 
dens by our own folly and sin : and these Jesus 
calls his, simply because he makes them easy and 
light, — so easy that it is no longer painful to wear 
them, so light that we almost lose the conscious- 
ness of carrying them. Christianity has a great 
deal ascribed to it that does not belong to it, — a 
great deal laid to its charge for which it is in no 
sense accountable. Those who are not Christians 
in heart and character are often indifferent or even 
hostile to Christianity, on the ground of its being 
burdensome and exacting ; and sincere Christians 
are very apt to impute to it what they have to bear 
solely because they became Christians so late, just 
as if an invalid should hold his physician account- 
able for the disease which he had relieved, and 
would have prevented or cured had he been called 
earlier. 



192 



CHRIST'S YOKE AND BURDEN. 



Let us consider some of the particulars in which 
Christ is reputed to impose a peculiarly galling 
yoke and heavy burden. 

It is a very common idea that Christianity has 
its own exclusive and severe standard of duty, — 
that it requires many things to be done or refrained 
from, which are in themselves matters of indiffer- 
ence. I acknowledge no such standard. Unless 
it be the simple ritual of our religion, which is bur- 
densome to no one, I know of no obligation that 
rests upon me as a Christian, which does not 
equally rest upon me as a man. The only reason 
why I am bound to do any thing is, that it is intrin- 
sically right and fitting ; the only reason why I am 
bound to refrain from doing any thing is, that it is 
intrinsically wrong and unfitting. Purity, indus- 
try, justice, charity, reverence for all that is great, 
love for all that is good, — are enjoined upon me 
by the law of my nature, and their opposites are 
forbidden by the same law. Moreover, this is not 
an inert law. It executes itself, bestows its re- 
wards, inflicts its penalties, even though one be 
wholly ignorant of it. Whatever is in itself right 
and fitting conduces to happiness ; whatever is 
wrong and unfitting leads to misery, — and this, 
not because Christ has enjoined or forbidden such 
and such things, but because these tendencies are 
inherent in all being, coeternal with the Infinite 



CHRIST'S YOKE AND BURDEN. 193 

Being, and omnipotence itself cannot suspend or 
reverse them. Christianity cannot enable us to do 
more than the right, nor can the rejection of Chris- 
tianity make less than the right incumbent upon 
us. The full burden of duty rests upon us from 
the first to the last moment of our self-conscious- 
ness as moral beings : and a crushingly heavy bur- 
den it is, when we are ignorant of the right, or 
when, knowing it, we lack motive power to actual- 
ize it ; for in either case we inevitably encounter 
the full penalty and suffering of the right omitted 
and the wrong committed. But this burden Christ 
makes light and easy in two ways, — first, by 
giving us clear knowledge of the right, in his plain 
and unmistakable precepts, and, most of all, in the 
beauty of holiness as exhibited in his life ; and, 
secondly, by the irresistible motives to duty which 
he supplies in the love of God our Father, in his 
own interceding, dying, ever-living love, and in the 
hope full of immortality. 

It follows from what I have said that the bur- 
den of a righteous retribution for wrong-doing is 
not imposed by Christ. Many revolt from Chris- 
tianity on the ground of its severe denunciation of 
bitter penalty and suffering for wrong and evil. 
But is it one whit more severe than human expe- 
rience ? What form of wrong-doing is there that 
has not written and is not writing its record in 

9 M 



194 CHRIST'S YOKE AND BURDEN. 



misery, woe, and blood ? The government of the 
universe in its whole tenor says, it is inscribed in 
letters of lurid flame on every page of man's his- 
tory, — " There is no peace to the wicked." 
Still more, wherever, out of the pale of Chris- 
tendom, there has been any belief or conjecture 
of a life beyond the present, the penal judg- 
ment of God, so manifest in this world, has 
projected itself into the unknown future in the 
most appalling forms. Witness the Greek and 
Roman mythologies, the various oriental systems, 
the more than Rhadamanthine sternness and search- 
ing scrutiny of the trial of the dead in the hieratic 
monuments of Egypt, the notions even of barba- 
rous and savage tribes. Indeed, it may be ques- 
tioned whether there has ever been, except in 
certain Christian sects, any theory or apprehension 
of a future life, which has not had its Tartarus 
and its Phlegethon. Nor can any reasonable man 
show how, if death be not annihilation, it can 
arrest the order of moral cause and effect which 
we trace visibly and consciously up to the very 
moment of death. If, then, we feel that the pen- 
alty of sin is a heavy yoke and burden, let us 
remember that it is not a yoke shaped by Christ, 
or a burden imposed by him. On the other hand, 
his agency with regard to it is only merciful ; for 
what can be more merciful than his explicit decla- 



CHRIST'S YOKE AND BURDEN. 195 



ration of the penalty, — not leaving ns to infer it 
by the indnetion of particular instances, from our 
own miserable experience, or from the reflection 
and reasoning which are so prone to be overborne 
and neutralized by strong temptation; but an- 
nouncing it explicitly and authoritatively, so that 
his utterances admit of no misconstruction, and 
under his training the youth may enter life 
with as clear a knowledge of the tendencies and 
consequences of actions as else could accrue to 
him only by lengthened years and the saddest 
experiments in evil living? If there be actual 
soul-peril, is not he our best friend who gives the 
quickest, sharpest, most imperative cry of alarm 
and warning ? Did Christ enact or inflict the 
penalty, we might well call his religion severe, 
and look upon him as a prophet of ill omen. But 
the revelation of what always was and ever will 
be, is the part of beneficence ; and the clearer and 
more emphatic the revelation, the greater is the 
beneficence. Especially, if moral evil is of neces- 
sity and by its own nature inevitably fatal to hap- 
piness (as is doubtless the case), he who makes 
men the most clearly perceive and feel this, does 
all that divine goodness can do in lightening the 
most galling yoke, the most crushing burden that 
can rest on human shoulders. 

But it may be said, If Christ imposes nothing' 



196 CHRIS rs TORE AND BURDEN. 



else upon his followers, he expressly lays upon 
them the yoke of penitence, the burden of self- 
reproach. This I deny. Penitence, being the 
consequence, of sin, can certainly with no fitness 
be ascribed to him, whose special mission is to 
supersede or put away sin. It is a burden 
which we bring with us into the school of Christ, 
not one that is laid upon us there. Nor can we 
get rid of it by remaining aloof from Christ. It 
has rested far more heavily under Pagan than 
ever under Christian auspices. There it has 
found expression in horrible and lifelong self- 
torture, in .bloody sacrifices, in the immolation of 
human victims, in the "giving of the first-born 
for transgression, the fruit of the body for the sin 
of the soul ; " and even then it has failed of the 
peace it sought, and has still cowered in dread of 
the divine vengeance, wrathful and unappeasable. 
But through Christ penitence is the way to peace. 
Its tears are the dew-drops of the sours resurrec- 
tion-morning. Its throes are the agonies of a 
heavenly birth. Its sorrows are the springs of an 
everlasting joy. Forgiveness is the counterpart 
of Christian penitence ; and though forgiveness 
arrests not the malign consequences of pre- 
existing evil, it nevertheless puts into action 
an immeasurably more potent order of moral 
causes, which overbear, dwarf, obliterate the 



CHRIST'S YOKE AND BURDEN. 



197 



train of evil consequences. The uniform expe- 
rience of the truly penitent has evinced that good 
is beyond all comparison more potent than evil ; 
and he who starts on a virtuous course, repentant 
and forgiven, energized by the love of God and 
the assurance of his love, rises by rapid stages 
into a sphere in which even his own past sins no 
longer hang about him as retarding and disturbing 
forces. 

It may still be objected to my general statement 
that Christ expressly, in words that cannot admit 
of a double interpretation, lays on his disciples 
the burden of self-denial. This I cannot admit. 
Self-denial is not a Christian duty, but a universal 
human necessity. Christ does not create the obli- 
gation to self-denial, but only prescribes its mode 
and its objects, and he does so in such a way as to 
render this inevitable yoke and burden light and 
easy to the utmost degree possible. That self- 
denial is a necessity every child has learned, and 
the experience of every day of our lives renews 
the lesson. We cannot have all that we desire, 
but must purchase some things by denying our- 
selves others. In the ordering of our lives, we 
have constantly to make our choice as to three 
pairs of alternatives. We may, when both cannot 
be secured at the same time, make choice of ani- 
mal enjoyment or spiritual happiness, selfish or 



198 



CHRIST'S YOKE AND BURDEN. 



beneficent habits of life, interests that are limited 
to this world or those that appertain to our immor- 
tal being. Let us look at each of those alterna- 
tives separately. 

If we deny ourselves spiritual happiness for 
mere sensual gratification, enjoyment is keen at 
the outset, but soon impaired, by excess even neu- 
tralized, then transformed into disease, misery, 
disgrace, ruin ; while with decreasing pleasure, 
but continued indulgence, the chains of bondage 
to the flesh are constantly growing tighter. The 
* body at length becomes a close prison for the soul, 
and the prison-walls keep thickening inward, so as 
to leave ever narrower room for the exercise of 
thought, sentiment, and feeling. The merciless 
tyranny of habit becomes more exacting the less 
revenue it yields, and is most imperative when 
it has survived all capacity of enjoyment. If, on 
the other hand, the body be denied for the sake 
of the soul, it is only the first steps that cost. 
With every successive stage of progress there is 
ever larger freedom and fuller joy, so that there is 
a vivid realization of the Psalmist's fervent utter- 
ance, " Oh, how love I thy law ! . . . How sweet 
are thy words unto my taste ! yea, sweeter than 
honey to my mouth! " 

If the benevolent be denied in behalf of the sel- 
fish impulses, the social nature is cramped, made 



CHRIST'S YOKE AND BURDEN. 



199 



unfruitful, deadened, the wretchedness of isola- 
tion (and there is no greater wretchedness) en- 
sues, the rich revenue to be derived from the 
social relations is cut off, and one learns only too 
late that, so far as substantial happiness is con- 
cerned, no man " can live unto himself." On the 
other hand, if self be denied for the good of oth- 
ers, we receive immeasurably more than we be- 
stow ; we multiply our avenues of enjoyment ; we 
are refreshed and gladdened by every stream and 
rill of beneficence, kind office, and genial feeling, 
that flows from our abundance or trickles from our 
scanty resources ; we have as many fountains of 
happiness as there are hearts and lives to whose 
happiness we minister. 

If we deny ourselves spiritual for temporal 
good, this earthly life narrows its horizon, oh, how 
rapidly ! with advancing years, till at length all 
that we have sought and delighted in lies behind 
us, — before us only a black, impenetrable wall, 
with the inscription more and more vivid, " What 
is a man profited, *if he shall gain the whole world, 
and lose his own soul?" If, on the other hand, 
we deny ourselves temporal for eternal good, our 
horizon broadens and brightens as the years roll 
on ; the rays of the undeclining day replace the 
waning lustre of our earthly day ; heaven dawns 
on the lengthening shadows of our setting sun; 



200 CHRIST'S YOKE AND BURDEN. 



and in the evening-time there is light, peace, 
hope, joy. 

Does Christ, then, impose the yoke of self- 
denial ? Or is it not rather through him that this 
inevitable burden is made such that we can carry 
it joyously and thankfully ? It must be borne in 
mind that the demand upon our self-denial, re- 
duced as it is to its lowest terms, is never made 
by Christ needlessly, for its own sake, but only 
where the higher good cannot be attained without 
sacrifice of the inferior. The gospel is at the 
farthest possible remove from asceticism. What- 
ever of bodily, self-centred, and earthly good we 
can secure without detriment to the spiritual na- 
ture, to our fellow-men, or our eternal well-being, 
is ours to acquire, utilize, and enjoy to the full; 
and we best show our gratitude to our infinite 
Benefactor, our piety to our heavenly Father, 
when we drink freely, and in full draughts, 
of every pure fountain of gladness that he has 
opened for us, — when with every power, sense, 
and faculty of body, mind, and* soul, we take in 
the most that we can of this rich and beautiful 
world, in which there are innumerable objects 
made only to be enjoyed as Godsends, and as 
types of the things that eye has not seen, nor ear 
heard, nor heart conceived, which God has pre- 
pared for those that love him. 



CHRIST'S YOKE AND BURDEN. 201 



Finally, there remains the unavoidable burden 
of earthly suffering, loss, calamity, bereavement, — 
a burden which least of all can even a perverse 
understanding ascribe directly to Jesus, yet which 
his disciple loves to term peculiarly his, so entirely 
is it transformed by him, from a load that drags 
the soul down to the depths of despair, into a 
weight elastic, though still heavy, sustained by the 
everlasting arms beneath, and its pressure relieved 
at every point by the buoyancy of an immortal 
hope. I once saw West's famous picture of Christ 
Healing the Sick; and though I have since seen 
many pictures of far greater artistical merit, there 
is but one of them all that recurs so frequently to 
my thought ; for the infirm, wan, wasted, crippled 
figures, in which the Saviour's very look seems 
starting anew the pulse-beat of healthy life, come up 
to my mind as symbolizing the fears, anxieties, and 
griefs that, all the world over, in believing hearts, 
are turned to his loving eye, laid bare for his 
healing touch, committed to his ministry of relief 
and restoration. 

Most of all does he make our burden his in our 
bereavements. There are, indeed, as many of us 
well know, memories of the departed which can 
never cease to be regretful, — void places in the 
nearer circle which, especially in the life that has 
passed its meridian, can never be filled, — voices 
9* 



202 CHRIST'S YOKE AND BURDEN. 



and footsteps not to be heard again in this world, 
whose retreating echo can never die on the inward 
ear. Oh, what must all this be, how depressing, 
how agonizing, to the soul to which the lost is for 
ever lost, the dead are irrevocably dead ! But 
though sad, yet sweetly sad, though dreary, yet 
never without flecks and glimmerings of glorious 
sunlight, are these experiences, when Jesus has 
fUled the soul with trust in the Father's unchang- 
ing love, has made it feel the power of his own 
resurrection, and has given it full assurance of the 
reunion where there is no parting, — of the greet- 
ing followed by no farewell, — of the speedy advent 
of the day when those who have gone and those 
who stay here, now in one Father's house, shall 
again dwell together in the same room of that 
house. 

Come, then, to him, all ye weary and heavy-laden, 
— ye who bow under the weight of sin, the stress 
of duty, or the healing pains of penitence, — ye 
who suffer and who mourn, — ye who are bereaved, 
stricken, desolate, — come to him, bear your yokes, 
bring your burdens to him, that they may be made 
light and easy for you till you shall drop them at 
his feet at the gate of heaven. 



TEE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE. 



203 



XVII. 

THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE. 
" The Lord will perfect that which concerneth me." — Psalm cxxxviii.8. 

A FRIEND said to me one Sunday, on the way 
from church, " How sad it is that we cannot 
devote ourselves more constantly to our own spirit- 
ual culture ! There are so many utterly unspiritual 
things to be done or gone through with, that it is 
really very little time that we can give to the great 
work of this life, — our preparation for a higher 
and better life." This would have been well said, 
were it not that the very condition of things com- 
plained of is a providential necessity, of God's 
appointment, and therefore undoubtedly better for 
us than any method that we might deem prefer- 
able. If the soul and God and heaven are not 
fictions, we are constrained to believe that the 
Divine Providence orders our discipline here with a 
view to our surest nurture and our highest good, 
that its school is our best school, its designated 
way the best way for us. 

I doubt whether the concentrated devotion to 



204 THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE. 



the soul for which the devout often yearn is the 
fit mode of educating the soul. Probably, even 
to the most religious mind, the cloister has never 
been so favorable to the growth of piety as the 
duties of an active life or of a Christian home 
would have been. A good man somewhat given 
to cant, meeting Wilberforce one day, said to him, 
" Brother, how is it now with your soul ? " and 
was shocked beyond measure by the philanthro- 
pist's reply, " I have been so busy about those poor 
negroes, that I had forgotten I had a soul." Yet 
there can be no doubt that hy means of " those 
poor negroes " Wilberforce's soul had been grow- 
ing a great deal faster than that of his friend, who 
had perhaps spent half his time in counting the 
pulse-beats of devotional feeling. 

A like lesson is well taught in a legend of St. 
Anthony, which in tone and spirit belongs to a 
more enlightened age than his. The saint — so 
the story runs — had lived many years in the des- 
ert, in solitude, abstinence, and prayer, till he came 
to regard himself as the holiest man on earth. One 
day there came to his ear a voice from heaven, say- 
ing, Anthony, thou art not so holy as is a certain 
cobbler now dwelling at Alexandria." On hearing 
this, Anthony took his staff and trudged many a 
weary mile, till he found himself at the cobbler's 
stall, when he told his errand. " Declare to me," 



THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE. 205 



said he, 44 thy good works, thine alms-deeds, and 
the great things that thou art doing for God ; for 
it has been revealed to rne from heaven that thou 
art the holiest man on the earth." The cobbler 
replied, 44 Good works do I none ; great things are 
beyond my ability. I rise betimes in the morning, 
and pray for my neighbors and poor friends, and 
for the whole city. Then I go to my work, and 
spend the whole day in getting my living. I abhor 
falsehood, and when I make a promise, I 'keep it. 
I teach my wife and children, to the best of my 
slender capacity, to serve and please God ; and I 
help my poor neighbors when I can. This is the 
sum of my whole life." 

In speaking thus I would not have it inferred 
that I hold emotional piety in low repute. On 
the other hand, I look upon it as the Alpha and 
the Omega, the source and the consummation of 
all that is excellent in man. But perpetual and 
over-anxious watching may do as little for the 
plants of God's planting in the heart as for those 
of our own planting in our gardens. 

Nor would I have it supposed that I undervalue 
the direct offices of piety, whether secret or social. 
On the other hand, I regard them as an essential 
part of the plan of Providence. Sabbatical insti- 
tutions — divine, I firmly believe, in their origin 
and appointment — -are so incorporated with the 



206 THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE. 



framework of civilized society, that, though they 
may, at some periods, as at the present, lose a 
part of their prestige, they will never be set aside, 
and will always bring with them the opportunity 
and the invitation for express religious worship and 
self-communion. Daily, too, as we yield up all 
care for ourselves in the night-watches to our un- 
slumbering Guardian, and as the morning restores 
us to ourselves laden with unnumbered tokens of 
divine benignity, there is a call to prayer and 
praise which the soul that owns its Father cannot 
but obey. There are, also, at less regular inter- 
vals, not infrequent seasons forced upon us, when 
serious reflection and heaven-directed thought 
seem almost inevitable, — when the soul's in- 
stinctive cry is, " I will arise, and go to my 
Father." These occasions are inestimably pre- 
cious, — yet less so in themselves, than for what 
we carry from them into common life. But God 
trains us, for the most part, in ways which we 
should not choose for that purpose, and sometimes 
in ways which we are prone to regard as injurious 
rather than helpful. To some of these methods 
of the Divine Providence I would now ask your 
attention. 

There is hardly any thing of which we are more 
apt to complain than routine-work, especially that 
in which not hand or foot, but brain and soul, 



THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE. 207 



are compelled to go over the self-same round day 
after day and year after year. We are sometimes 
inclined, in our weariness, to resort for terms of 
comparison to the very Tartarus of our classical 
studies, — the rock of Sisyphus and the sieve of 
the Danaides. Yet we might look for our par- 
allel in the opposite direction ; for is not the ad- 
ministration of this glorious universe, for the most 
part, a routine ? Has not the infinite Creator, for 
unnumbered seons, renewed, day by day and year 
by year, the same unvarying round of beneficent 
ministries ? And if we may be permitted to speak 
of that self-consciousness in which our own has its 
birth, must we not think of this routine as a part 
of God's supreme felicity, while ever new love, 
mercy, and compassion flow in the course of uni- 
versal nature, and breathe in the benignant will, 
which is no less essential from moment to moment 
than when in the beginning it moulded chaos into 
form, life, and beauty? Now, so far as God's spirit 
is in us, our routine-work shall be exalted, hal- 
lowed, glorified, made more and more like his. Is 
it for the benefit of others, and is it lovingly 
wrought? If so, those affections which are so essen- 
tial a part of the soul's best life, are exercised, 
fed, and strengthened by it, and we thus become — 
though it be without our distinct consciousness — - 
enlarged in our sympathies, broadened in our char- 



208 



THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE. 



ity, better fitted for every genial ministry of earth 
and of heaven. Or is our life-work one which 
has prime reference to self, yet imposed upon us 
by necessities of subsistence or position which we 
cannot evade ? If so, it is of God's appointment, 
— a part of our divine service ; and if it be per- 
vaded by the true spirit of service, it is a routine 
only in appearance, — in reality, it is a revolution 
on an ever higher plane, in an ever larger orbit ; 
and we shall find in God's good time that it has 
been training us for the unwearying service of the 
heavenly temple. Yet again, is our routine, as it 
probably is, one which admits, with every new 
revolution, of more of mind, and soul, and 
strength? Then, wearisome though it be, it is 
a healthful discipline, equally for the powers 
which it calls into exercise, and for that consci- 
entious fidelity in our appointed sphere, which 
must concur with trained and tried capacity in 
fitting the steward of the few and small things 
committed to his earthly trust for the larger stew- 
ardship of the heavenly life. 

Another subject of frequent complaint is the 
waste of time in unavoidable, but unprofitable, 
social engagements. The hours which, if taken 
from more laborious pursuits, we would gladly 
devote to entertaining or lucrative intercourse 
with equals and friends, the wise and the bril- 



THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE. 209 

liant, those whose converse is our privilege and 
our joy, must often be spent where we give, and 
receive nothing in return, — it may be, with those 
whom we see fit to -call dull and stupid, or frivo- 
lous and empty, or with the impertinent and im- 
portunate, — with those who claim sympathy to 
which they seem to have no right, or aid to which 
they can proffer no title other than their need. 
We have to endure, many of us, tedious and 
needless details, vain repetitions, profitless ques- 
tionings. Can this be a part of our spiritual edu- 
cation ? Yes ; and a most essential part. It 
comes to us through the ordering of Providence, 
and is therefore, no doubt, better for us than the 
great things which we would gladly do instead, 
but for which the opportunity is not afforded us. 
As regards our self-centred plans and purposes, 
our capacity and ambition in certain directions, 
there is for some of us a fearful expense of time 
in such ways as I have specified. But we shall 
one day own that no time has been better spent, if 
on these occasions we have exercised patience, for- 
bearance, unwearying kindness, persevering help- 
fulness, — if we have given pleasure, diffused 
happiness, relieved burdens, cleared perplexity, 
shed sunlight on those who live under the shadow, 
quickened dull minds, lightened heavy hearts. 
The divine Teacher says, that it is not what goes 

N 



210 



THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE. 



into, but what comes out of, a man that defiles him ; 
and, conversely, it is not what goes into, but what 
comes out of, the man that exalts and sanctifies 
him. In all social relations it is more blessed to 
give than to receive. There is no connection with 
our fellow-beings, by which we are not improved 
and advanced, morally and spiritually, if we enter 
into it with a kind heart, a generous purpose, and 
an earnest endeavor to do good. Moreover, if we 
have to endure intercourse that is in no sense or 
measure fruitful and edifying, — if there are those 
whom we must, in the vulgar phrase, put up with 
rather than enjoy, let us think what an infinite 
fountain of forbearance and unlimited love is 
drawn upon all the time by the children of our 
Father in heaven, whose immeasurable joy is in 
this constant outflow with no gainful incoming ; 
and conscious that we are among those whose only 
claim has been his love and not their desert, shall 
we not imbibe the spirit which bears with us and 
with all, and flows in unceasing benignity while 
the returns of gratitude are so few, so scanty, and 
so cold ? 

B ut in such ways as I have spoken of, solid por- 
tions of time that might have been given to our 
own mental culture are often invaded and frittered 
away. Can this be good for us ? Yes, if Provi- 
dence so wills. Growing knowledge is, no doubt, 



THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE. 



211 



an unspeakable benefit ; yet we may be too impa- 
tient for its acquisition. We may feel too much 
as if this world gave the only opportunities for 
mental cultivation and growth. God's work seems 
slow, because he has an eternity before him ; and 
may we not be content to be retarded in our plans 
of culture, with an eternity before us ? A part of 
what we may regret that we lose here will be of 
no interest or worth to us when we go hence ; and 
for all that we can then desire and need there is 
ample room in the limitless future. All great 
truths are eternal, and it may make less difference 
than we imagine whether our progress in this 
world be suspended at a lower or a higher stage, 
if the suspension be but momentary, and what we 
attain not here will be ours hereafter. What 
chiefly concerns us is the love of truth, the earnest 
aim for its attainment, the habit of mind which 
shall dispose us in all time and in all worlds to 
see God in truth and to seek truth in God ; and 
then, if there be hinderances in our pursuit here, 
these hinderances shall be the means of deep- 
ening in our souls that love without which knowl- 
edge is vain, and which in a higher state of being 
will hold to knowledge the same relation which 
the understanding and the reason hold now, will 
itself be an apprehensive faculty, a cognitive 
power, foremost among the interpreters of the 
divine wisdom. 



212 TEE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE. 



Another often uncomfortable method of spir- 
itual discipline consists in the seemingly excessive 
annoyance and mortification occasioned by what 
we account as slight mistakes, follies, and faults. 
In the vexation and discomfort which we bring: 
upon ourselves by some momentary and almost 
unconscious deviation from the fitting and the 
right, we often have an impressive practical com- 
mentary on the text, " Behold, how great a matter 
a little fire kindleth ! " But in these experiences' 
we have a most essential and blessed part of our 
providential education. We clearly recognize the 
wisdom of God's method of reforming great sins, 
by suffering them to write out their visible record, 
to do their manifest work, and to show their hei- 
nousness in the revolting types of outward evil 
that spring from them. He takes the same 
method with the foibles and little sins of the 
willing and docile subjects of his discipline, only 
writing the record of these minor wrongs in mag- 
nified characters, that they may draw attention and 
produce a change of conduct. How should we ever 
recognize our failures and faults, did they not 
leave these vivid traces in our experience? But 
by this instrumentality we are often led to take 
a new departure, to retrieve false steps, to form 
better purposes, to watch against ambush and 
surprise in our spiritual warfare. We thus fall 



TEE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE. 213 



only to rise the higher, and by our errors and 
shortcomings are made only the more true and 
pure, God-serving and heaven-tending, so that we 
are constrained to own with devout gratitude, 
" Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth." 

Equally is Providence educating us by those 
trials and griefs — the lighter and the heavier — 
which belong to our condition as mortals. But it 
is never to be forgotten that the ministry of afflic- 
tion is wholly contingent on our receptivity. The 
, sands of the desert drink in the spring-rains, but 
are not fructified by them. The untilled field 
returns their blessing in unsightly and noxious 
weeds. But in the prepared soil they reappear in 
growing grain and swelling fruit-buds, the prize 
of faithful toil, the hope of the year; and those 
dreary, chilly, sunless days of the early rain are 
the harbingers of all that is bright, beautiful, and 
gladdening- in garden, field, and orchard. Thus 
the dews and rains of God's afflictive providence 
in some souls are absorbed and lost, and leave no 
sign ; others they sour, or madden, or hopelessly 
depress ; but where there are already germs of the 
heavenly Father's planting, they quicken growth, 
they create inward grace and beauty, they fruc- 
tify all peaceful thoughts, pure desires, and holy 
aspirations, they ripen the harvest whose reapers 
are the angels. Nor are they without their min- 



214 



THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE. 



istry, even of joy. There are, indeed, types of 
gladness that cannot be reproduced after a first 
heavy sorrow. We can never again look upon 
the world with the same eyes. There are void 
places in our earthly loves that must remain void 
while we stay here. But there is a profounder 
love for those who stay with us, a gentleness, 
tenderness, sweetness of affection, unknown be- 
fore. Our love gains by loss, grows by amputa- 
tion. Above all, there is a more vivid sense of 
heavenly realities, a consciousness of unbroken 
union with those that seem divided from us, an 
intimacy with higher fellowships opened for us by 
those who have gone from us, a more clinging 
sense of dependence on the Infinite Love, and 
hence a joy purer and loftier, though its pris- 
tine buoyancy be for ever lost. Especially as life 
wanes and the shadows lengthen, may the treas- 
ures laid up in heaven give us a familiar, home- 
like feeling as to the mansion where they shall be 
ours again, and the very hopes whose failure cast 
a cloud over earlier years may thus shed over our 
declining days a genial light that shall grow 
brighter and brighter till it is merged in the pure 
radiance of heaven. 

But not only through these sadder ministries is 
God's providence perfecting that which concern- 
eth us. Equally, though it is a truth which we 



THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE. 



215 



are not wont to recognize, is all that is mirthful 
and gladdening a part of our education for our 
immortal being. How "vast is our receptivity of 
gladness ! How kindly the necessity — not only 
in childooocl and youth, but under our severest 
cares and labors, and even under the burden of 
many years — of recreation and pleasure ! How 
blessed the inseparable alternation of the festive 
and the serious aspects and experiences of life, 
and the influence of the former over the latter, 
so that the fuller our draughts of joy, the greater 
is our power of persistent duty, labor, and endur- 
ance ! Mirth is in itself so spontaneous, so pure, 
so healthful, fed from so many and various 
sources of divine benignity, so underlying even 
the rough and stony and dusty ways of life, 
that I cannot believe it earthly in its scope 
and destiny. There must be room and food 
for it in every stage of our being. Not that 
I would leave it unhallowed here ; but when 
most hallowed, it is not suppressed, nay, rather it 
is then most enduring, salient, irrepressible. The 
capacity for it is given, that it may be hallowed, — 
that, rejoicing first of all in God, we may take in 
to the full the joy-giving ministries of his crea- 
tion and his providence, and may feel to the 
utmost the genial flow of his everlasting love. 
Let, then, our glad use of what God has bestowed 



216 THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE. 



for our happiness be limited only by the work that 
he has given us to do ; and then our work and our 
play, our mirthful and our serious hours, shall bear 
equal part in training us for the joy of the divine 
presence in heaven, and for the service that shall 
only enhance the perfectness of that joy. 

Thus by his various discipline is God perfecting 
that which concerneth us, giving us a far better 
education than we could plan for ourselves. Let 
us yield ourselves lovingly to the training of his 
providence, assured that, ordered by him, all 
things shall work together for our good. 



REASONS FOR UNBELIEF. 



217 



XVIXI. 

REASONS EOR UNBELIEF. 
"0 thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?" — Matt. xiv. 31. 

T NEED not tell you that there is at the present 
moment a great deal of scepticism and unbe- 
lief, not only as to Christianity, but as to those 
great truths that lie at the basis of all religion. I 
propose now to examine with you some of the 
sources of this condition of mind y that I may help 
you to avoid them. 

1. Unbelief frequently results from the very 
nature of religious truths, and of the kinds of rea- 
soning on which belief in them rests, so far as that 
belief is not intuitive. Mathematical truth, when 
once proved, admits of no counter-argument, and 
cannot be disbelieved or doubted by a sane man. 
He who should deny the axioms or the demon- 
strated propositions of geometry- would be deemed, 
not a poor reasoner, but a madman or an idiot. 
With moral truth the case is entirely different. 
The Atheist, the Deist, the Rationalist, may be 
thought to reason badly, but is not chargeable with 
10 



218 



REASONS FOB UNBELIEF. 



insanity or idiocy, or even with feebleness of 
intellect. There is no proposition in the realm of 
moral and religious ideas that does not admit 
of seemingly strong opposing arguments. We 
reach a rational conclusion on such subjects by 
weighing the reasons on both sides, and yielding 
to what appears to be the preponderance of argu- 
ment or evidence. Now the very fact that relig- 
ious truths admit of doubt or objection is the cause 
of a great deal of unbelief. They are taught to 
children, like truths in the exact sciences, as un- 
questioned and unquestionable verities ; and they 
ought to be so taught ; for there is hope that they 
may take strong hold on the child's emotional 
nature, and inscribe themselves indelibly on his 
consciousness, before he is capable of understand- 
ing the reasons for or against them. But if, instead 
of becoming incorporated with his whole moral 
being and moulding his character, they are merely 
deposited in the memory, the discovery that there 
are any who doubt them is likely of itself to awaken 
doubt. 

Such doubt is liable to be confirmed and pro- 
longed by the very feebleness and shallowness of 
the reasons that sustain it. The objections to the 
truths of religion are for the most part super- 
ficial ; and because they lie on the surface, and are 
easily grasped — while the affirmative reasons are 



REASONS FOB UNBELIEF. 



219 



profounder and therefore demand more careful 
consideration — they frequently get and keep pos- 
session of minds that are not sufficiently interested 
in the subject, or of a sufficiently serious habit, to 
take cognizance of the affirmative arguments. 

It must also be admitted that a large proportion 
of the doubts raised by the sceptic are unanswer- 
able, that many of the difficulties in the way of relig- 
ious belief are unsolvable, because the materials for 
constructing their refutation lie beyond our knowl- 
edge. They are to be overborne or outweighed, 
not answered or solved. We who have devoted 
our whole lives to these themes often find our- 
selves unable to give a direct answer to the sceptic 
or the unbeliever; but we think that we can always 
show him that immeasurably greater difficulties and 
more perplexing doubts rest against the negative 
than against the affirmative answer to these mo- 
mentous questions. Let me illustrate the state of 
the case by one or two obvious examples. 

Take, first, the fundamental truth of natural and 
revealed religion, " God is love." Who can solve, 
in accordance with this truth, the complex prob- 
lems presented by the existence of physical and 
moral evil, — the former often unmerited, the latter 
often hereditary, and thus in a great measure in- 
voluntary, — evil, too, which in this world serves no 
visible purpose, and has no visible offset or com- 



220 



REASONS FOR UNBELIEF. 



pensation, — evil without earthly remedy or hope? 
Of this whole night-side of the divine providence 
the wisest can give only tentative, partial, approx- 
imate solutions, which always resolve themselves 
into St. Paul's exclamation, " How unsearchable 
are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! " 
But these things do not disturb our faith, when 
we consider the immense preponderance of benef- 
icent plan, provision, causation, and issue in the 
divine government, the boundless profusion of 
munificent love in all nature, being, and experi- 
ence, and the eternal life in which there is ample 
scope for evil to merge itself in good, for the very 
" wrath of man " to redound to the praise of God, 
and for sin — overcome and destroyed — to mani- 
fest in its history the wisdom, and in its extinction 
the invincible might, of redeeming mercy. When 
we take these things into the account, we find 
that the difficulties attending the denial of the 
divine love are beyond all comparison greater than 
those which lie in the fatherly goodness and be- 
nign providence of God, as taught by Christ and in 
the Christian Scriptures. 

To take another instance, the infidelity of our 
time abounds in cavils and sneers against the 
marvellous facts in the history of the New Testa- 
ment ; and were we to view them simply as abnor- 
mal facts interpolated in the order of nature, we 



BEASONS FOB UNBELIEF. 



221 



should find it exceedingly difficult to account for 
them. No wonder is it that in the light in which 
they are often presented, they are, to not a few, 
insuperable obstacles in the way of faith. But 
when, entering into the heart of Christ, we be- 
come 44 filled with his fulness," and find these 
wonderful events inextricably interwoven with 
the divine beauty and glory of his life, pervaded 
by his spirit, recognized in his sublimest utter- 
ances, illustrating his character, opening ever 
deeper views of the perfect Providence and the 
eternal life which he taught and manifested, so 
identified with his whole being, mission, teach- 
ings, and activity, that to separate them from him 
is to extinguish the Sun of Righteousness in our 
hearts, to dethrone, him whom we cannot but own 
as our Lord, and to mutilate the charter of our 
forgiveness and hope, — then these narratives are 
cleared in our minds from all cavils and objec- 
tions, and become objects of our undoubting and 
rejoicing faith. While we see strong reasons for 
calling them in question, we find insurmountable 
difficulties in rejecting them. 

Let me sum up in a few words what I would 
say on this head to those who are exposed to the 
assaults of infidelity. Expect to find objections to 
any and every statement of moral and religious 
truth or fact; for the possibility of objection is 



222 



REASONS FOR UNBELIEF. 



inherent in the subjects themselves, and the will is 
never wanting. If that which is called in ques- 
tion is really truth or fact, the objections to it will 
be superficial, therefore plausible, obtrusive, easily 
urged, capable of being handled adroitly by men 
of the shallowest minds. If it is truth or fact, the 
objections will probably be founded on the essen- 
tial and invincible ignorance that belongs to our 
human and mortal condition, — precisely such ob- 
jections as exist and might be urged with equal 
force against unnumbered facts, laws, and pro- 
cesses of nature, which we believe, yet cannot 
account for. If it is truth or fact, the objections 
will lose their plausibility and seeming weight, 
when from the surface you begin to penetrate 
the heart of things, and to consider seriously the 
affirmative evidence on which the faith of the 
wisest and best men in all the Christian ages has 
reposed. 

Our age — let me add — with all its preten- 
sions, has made no new contributions to the cause 
of unbelief. The arguments now rife against the 
truths of natural religion are as old as Lucretius ; 
those against Christianity have a strong flavor of 
venerable antiquity. The forge-fires in the ar- 
mory of infidelity were extinguished centuries 
ago. All that is done now is the furbishing of 
weapons that have been employed over and over 



REASONS FOE UNBELIEF. 



223 



again. All the missiles of unbelief have been 
bent and blunted by the shield of faith ; all its 
defensive armor has been riddled through and 
through by the sword of the Spirit. Intelligent 
believers are believers, not because they ignore 
opposing arguments, but because they have meas- 
ured weapons with their antagonists, because they 
have not shunned the thickest of the fight, — 
many of them, because they have passed through 
various phases of doubt and unbelief, and have 
persevered in their search after truth, till they 
found it in Christ and his gospel. I feel confident 
that such will be the result with the inquirer who 
is both honest and persevering. Our religion 
seeks the light, challenges investigation, invites 
free thought, and suffers more than from all else 
from the indifference or timidity which refuses to 
examine its indestructible foundations, and the 
indubitable proof that they were laid by the hand 
that built the earth and spread the heavens. 

2. Infidelity, in the next place, sometimes has 
its cause in the sluggishness and apathy of the 
moral nature. A man, who has no care for his 
future, no desire for an advanced standard of 
excellence, no sensitiveness to his imperfections, 
no higher aim than to lead an easy life from day 
to day, and to secure the maximum of physical 
enjoyment, or popularity, or gain, cannot bring 



224 



BE AS ON S FOB UNBELIEF. 



his mind to bear upon the great themes of Chris- 
tian faith. He has no desires of the kind which 
the gospel professes to satisfy, no thirst for the 
living water which Jesus proffers ; and no wonder 
is it that he holds up as a shield against the seri- 
ous thoughts that might disturb his plans of life 
any objection, however superficial, that may be 
casually suggested. No wonder is it that he wel- 
comes any justification of his grovelling world- 
liness at the expense of the religion which 
condemns it. But there are solemn questions 
which ought to press on every mind, and on none 
so urgently as on those in early life, who may 
now, if they will, build their characters on a sure 
foundation, but in future years will find it. hard or 
impossible to insert a new foundation beneath the 
massive life-structure erected on the sand. You 
have, my friend, a definite position as a moral being. 
What is that position ? Are you accountable ? If 
so, to whom ? Have you duties ? If so, to whom 
are they due ? You must die ; you may die soon. 
Is there a life after death ? If there be, are 
you prepared for it ? Are you willing to trust 
yourself as you are to the unknown future ? If 
there be another life, have you the character 
which you are willing to take into that life ? 
If you were consciously on the margin of the 
death-river, are you ready for the plunge ? You 



SEASONS FOR UNBELIEF. 



225 



cannot hold communion with your own soul with- 
out asking these questions. There is within you a 
native religion, every article of which is pointed 
with an interrogation-mark. But the answers are 
not within you. If you ask these questions, you 
must look for answers, and you find them only 
in the gospel of Jesus Christ. There you have 
an affirmative religion, corresponding throughout 
with the interrogative religion of your own soul, 
the one the counterpart of the other, showing by 
this minute and perfect mutual adaptation that 
they both come from the same hand, — that the 
gospel emanates from the Author of }~our being. 
Let me earnestly beseech you to ask these mo- 
mentous questions ; and I know that instead of 
turning away from J esus, you will say with your 
whole heart, " Lord, to whom shall I go ? Thou, 
and thou alone, hast the words of eternal life." 

3. There is yet to be named another — I fear, 
not an infrequent — cause of infidelity ; namely, 
what is termed by one of the sacred writers " an evil 
heart of unbelief." When one is forming vicious 
habits, has fallen into dangerous associations from 
which he has not the energy to cut himself loose, 
has permitted himself to be swept into a current 
of demoralizing influence which he lacks courage 
to stem, — so long as he retains the religious be- 
lief of his childhood, he suffers chronic torture. 
10* o 



226 



BE AS ONS FOB UNBELIEF. 



He feels that he is under the ban of a righteous 
God, — that he is incurring the most fearful sen- 
tences of condemnation written in the divine word, 
— that he is enrolling himself among those for 
whom even the loving Saviour predicts nothing 
but misery, and whom he, with all his gentleness, 
denounces as aliens from the kingdom of heaven. 
There have been those who, in later life or on the 
death-bed, in godly penitence or in hopeless re- 
morse, have acknowledged that for months and 
years they bore about on a career of profligacy 
this unresting torment, this very hell upon earth, 
in consequence of their unremoved faith in the 
records of divine revelation. No marvel is it that 
such a one hails with delight the first visitings 
or suggestions of scepticism, drinks in with a 
greedy ear cavils and sneers often more potent 
than arguments, and, as his religious belief falls 
away, feels as if chains were dropping from his 
limbs, and he were taking his first invigorating 
breath after long imprisonment. 

Thus it is that you find what is commonly called 
free-thinking, and what is by a most audacious 
misnomer termed free-living — it is the most slav- 
ish life that one can lead — closely conjoined ; and 
it is in the very circles where the restraints of 
scrupulous morality have no hold that Christianity 
is most sure to be treated with ridicule, contempt, 



REASONS FOR UNBELIEF. 



227 



and scorn. Infidelity and vice are loving sisters, 
purvey for each other, work best together; and 
whichever of the two gets the first hold of a dupe, 
she never feels sure of keeping him till the other 
has him also. 

But, my friend, if you have taken your first 
departure from soberness, purity, and Christian 
virtue, if you have entered on the way of trans- 
gressors, and find yourself tormented there by 
thoughts of God and Christ and the eternal judg- 
ment, oh, cling to these thoughts, though they be 
agonizing. Let them rend and lacerate your soul ; 
for they may — cherished, they will — emancipate 
you, — will bring you out from the bondage of 
sin into the freedom of the city of God. But let 
them yield to unbelief, — the quiet that will ensue 
is a death-slumber, from which you may awake 
only to find yourself in your own place, at the left 
hand of the righteous Judge. 

My friends, let me urge this subject upon your 
most serious thought. In the cavils which some 
of you are perhaps over-ready to entertain, in the 
loose notions to which you perhaps accord, and for 
which you claim the hospitality of an open ear 
and an indulgent heart, you are preparing deeper 
shadows for the dark days that may be before you, 
and planting thorns in your death-pillows ; while 
faith in God as your Father, in his law as immu- 



228 



REASONS FOR UNBELIEF. 



table and inevitable, in Jesus Christ as a divine 
Teacher, a sure Guide, an all-sufficient Saviour, in 
heaven and the life everlasting as the goal and 
destiny of a worthy life on earth, in fine, Chris- 
tian faith, is God's best gift, and man's most 
precious attainment. 



THE HOLY SPIRIT. 



229 



XIX. 



THE HOLY SPIRIT. 

("WHITSUNDAY.) 

"The Holy Spirit." — Luke xi. 13. 

HIS is the anniversary of the day of Pente- 



cost, called Whitsunday, from the white 
robes of the newly baptized catechumens who 
used formerly to be then received to their first 
communion. I doubt whether we know precisely 
what took place on that day. Yet perhaps we 
know as much as the persons present could clearly 
recall and tell ; for it is often those who are most 
immediately involved in a rapid series of remark- 
able and exciting incidents, who are least able to 
define them with precision, and this may be the 
reason why the author of the Acts of the Apostles, 
whose circumstantial minuteness indicates his ac- 
curacy and honesty as an historian, has left some 
points in this particular narrative less distinct and 
intelligible than we might desire. But this we 
learn, — that there occurred external phenomena 




230 



THE HOLY SPIRIT. 



which filled a large number of persons with amaze- 
ment, secured for the name and cause of the late 
crucified Jesus a sudden accession of honor and 
influence, and multiplied his disciples more than 
twenty-fold. This, too, we learn, that on the same 
day the primitive disciples found themselves pos- 
sessed of a zeal for the truth, a love of God and 
man, and a spiritual might, which never left them 
afterward, so that for them the Pentecost was the 
beginning of a new and momentous epoch in their 
lives. 

Miracle is not of right a Scriptural word. The 
word so rendered denotes sign, token, or indication. 
A miracle is a mere wonder, and there are as many 
of them around us this morning as there are blos- 
soms on the trees. A sign refers to the thing 
signified, and thus has a definite purpose and 
meaning. It is not as mere marvels, nor even as 
testimonies and credentials, that the signs recorded 
in the early Christian history have their chief 
value. They are revelations. They lift the veil 
behind which God works ; and though the veil 
be parted but for a moment, it remains translu- 
cent ever after. What God did visibly through 
Christ, he does invisibly, but no less really, in all 
time and among all men. So here, the external 
manifestations of the day of Pentecost were but 
signs and revealings of the Spirit of God, no less 



THE HOLY SPIRIT. 



231 



really with us to-day than with the apostles then, 
— no less ready, if we will listen to it and obey 
it, to strengthen us for our appointed life-work 
than it was to energize them for their work. As 
at Christmas we celebrate, not an infant's birth, 
but a life which throbs new-born every day in 
every Christian heart ; as at Easter we commem- 
orate not one resurrection, but the resurrection 
of all men, of which that one is the type and 
pledge : so at the Pentecost we offer our praise 
and thanksgiving, not for the descent of a Holy 
Spirit never known before, and now known only 
in history, but for the revelation, by visible and 
audible tokens, of God's eternal and ever-working 
Spirit. 

In the Greek of the New Testament, as many 
of you know, the word rendered spirit is the word 
constantly employed to denote wind ; and the idea 
which it" suggests is that of an influence in the 
realm of souls corresponding to the wind in the 
material world, subtle, untraceable, yet every- 
where felt, all-penetrating, all-powerful, — with 
a diversity of operations, too ; now a whispering 
breeze, then an air-torrent, — now breathing in 
calm contemplation, then inspiring a might before 
which the powers of evil are scattered and bro- 
ken. 

Do you ask in what this Spirit is ? Ask, rather, 



232 



THE HOLY SPIRIT. 



in what it is not. But we may, perhaps, best com- 
prehend it by its analogue in man. We all recog- 
nize, over and above what a man says and does, a 
pervading spirit, an aura, a perpetual emanation as 
it were, which gives him the greater part of his in- 
fluence. One man may say and do nothing that you 
can blame ; yet his presence gives you no inspira- 
tion, no help, — you feel no better, no stronger, 
for it ; nay, there may be from him an outgoing of 
even a deleterious influence, a blighting wind on 
the plants of grace. Another man may say and 
do only common things ; yet somehow there play 
around him breezes from heaven, — we feel in his 
societjr a fresh and pure spiritual atmosphere, and 
all that is good in us is quickened and gladdened 
by his presence. It is not by word or deed that 
we exercise the most power over one another ; but 
even in words and deeds of the least inherent sig- 
nificance one works on those around him with the 
whole force of his character. The receptivity of 
such influence is contingent on the degree of inti- 
macy. In like manner, God's Spirit breathes in 
every form of his presence ; but our receptivity of 
it depends on the more or less intimate relation in 
which we place ourselves with him. These truths 
let us consider. 

There is a Holy Spirit in nature. Far be from 
us the theology which relegates creation to the 



THE HOLY SPIRIT. 



233 



mythical past. God as truly creates, as lie cre- 
ated, the heavens and the earth. His perpetual 
fiat, his sustaining and renovating energy, his 
incorruptible spirit, is in all things. Heart-com- 
munion with nature intenerates, refines, ennobles 
character. But why ? Not because in the mere 
lifeless forms or unreasoning tribes of nature there 
is any power over man; but because the imma- 
nent God makes himself felt through all his 
works, in glory, in beauty, in order, in har- 
mony, in transparent purity, in diffusive love. 
It is spiritual traits, which, though exhibited in 
lifeless forms, can be inherent only in a living 
spirit, that we take into our souls, and that stir 
within us pure affections, aims, aspirations, renew- 
ing our better selves, and sending us to our duty 
with hearts attuned to it, and with thoughts of joy 
and gratitude. This is why nature seems ever 
new. It "really is ever new, as our prayer this 
morning, if fervent, is new, though we may have 
prayed in the same words a hundred times before. 
This is the reason, too, why the self-same forms of 
nature, as we call them, grow upon us, if our 
souls grow ; why many of us feel every year as if 
the spring, the summer, the autumn, were never 
so beautiful before. Our eyes take in no more 
than they did years and years ago ; but if we 
have grown in spirit, our souls can this year take 



234 



THE HOLY SPIRIT. 



in from the same scenes more of the Divine 
Spirit that is in them than they ever took in be- 
fore, because their receptivity is enhanced. The 
well is no fuller ; but we have larger vessels 
wherewith to draw from it. 

God's Spirit is also in his providence, and in 
our whole experience of life. In blessings un- 
measured and unnumbered he is revealing to us 
his love, — coming forth, like the father in the 
parable, to meet his child with the kiss of peace 
and the ring of reconciliation. From the crowded 
mercies of this very morning there comes to us 
the voice, " Lift up your hearts." Oh that there 
might go forth from each of us the old church- 
response, 41 We lift them up unto the Lord " ! Yet 
other voices of God come to us in these blessings. 
They all bear designations of their uses in their 
intrinsic fitnesses ; and they are so ordered and 
distributed that they may help us in the attain- 
ment of inward virtues and graces, which shall 
demand still warmer thanks and more fervent 
praise. 

Then, too, when sorrow comes, it comes with so 
gentle preparation, with so many open sources of 
relief and comfort, with so many remaining bless- 
ings not only untouched, but made more precious, 
that in the deepest grief our gratitude may even 
abound the more ; and if we have been remiss 



THE HOLY SPIRIT. 



235 



in devotion while every thing was bright around 
us, the cry of the afflicted spirit is not, " All these 
things are against me," but rather, u Return unto 
thy rest, O my soul, for the Lord hath dealt boun- 
tifully with thee." 

I cannot conceive of a calm retrospect upon any 
extended portion of life, without its clearly reveal- 
ing a guiding, educating providence, a teaching, 
admonishing, loving spirit, an ordering of outward 
events for the purity, growth, and strength of the 
inner man. It is, indeed, a spirit which we may 
resist, grieve, quench. But the receptive soul 
sees God no less in its own experience than in 
sun, cloud, and ocean, and day by clay reads in 
the course of the divine providence the Father's 
specific command, loving purpose, and benignant 
ministry. 

The Holy Spirit of God is in all the pure lives, 
good examples, and beneficent human influences 
that are around us. The spirit which goes forth 
in kindly ministrations from man to man, in the 
loving words, timely counsels, and sacred sympa- 
thies that energize and gladden us, comes from 
the Father ; and it is the very essence of his best 
gifts to the individual soul, that he who receives 
them cannot but impart them ; naj r , that their 
bestowal by him is contingent on their free be- 
stowal upon others. 



236 



THE HOLY SPIRIT. 



" Ceasing to give, we cease to have, — 
Such is the law of love." 

The Holy Spirit is in Jesus Christ. The old 
liturgical formula, 44 The Holy Spirit, proceeding 
from the Father and the Son," is not the mere 
dogma of a creed, but the fundamental truth of 
the Christian life. In Jesus we have imaged, as 
nowhere else, for our clear apprehension, the 
holiness, the spiritual beauty and loveliness, the 
fatherhood of God ; and in all that we admire in 
his character, in all that we imbibe from it and 
reproduce in our own lives, we are seeing the Fa- 
ther in the Son, and growing into the resplendent 
image we behold, — making ourselves followers of 
God as dear children, and becoming partakers of 
the divine nature. 

But this is not all. Between human beings 
presence is communion. Without word or act, 
influence, clearly felt and recognized, goes forth 
from one to the other, especially from the more 
powerful spirit of the two, if the weaker be con- 
fiding and loving, so that a revered and cherished 
presence is always felt to be a power. Thus must 
it of necessity be with the divine presence ; and so 
have all felt it who desire so to feel it. That 
presence, which is nowhere inert and otiose in 
outward nature, can least of all be so in the realm 
of living souls. The walls of the body can no 



THE HOLY SPIRIT. 237 

more shut out the Spirit of God than can our 
walls of brick and stone shut out the ever- 
moving air which is its symbol. Why should we 
look elsewhere for thoughts and movements of 
spirit — worthy of God — whose source we cannot 
readily trace by the laws of suggestion or associa- 
tion? That he should exert this influence is so 
entirely natural, that it needs not to be proved or 
accounted for. The absence of such influence is 
only less incredible than atheism. Accordingly, 
not under Christian auspices alone, but in every 
form and at every grade of religious culture, wise 
men have believed, good men have owned, the 
influence of a divine spirit in the soul of man; 
and from Plato, Plutarch, Epictetus, Marcus An- 
toninus, might be quoted such earnest, devout, and 
loving utterances of this assurance as, were they 
found in the writings of Christian saints, would 
be ridiculed and scoffed at by the Sadducees of 
our time, while they would be accepted by belie v- 
ing souls as the prophecy of their own richest 
experience. 

What though we are not always able to dis- 
criminate between the divine influence and the 
action of our . own minds ? Does this cast doubt 
on the reality of the former ? Can we alwaj^s 
discriminate between what we do in and of 
ourselves and what — though it be through the 



238 



THE HOLY SPIRIT. 



agency of our own will — others do with and in 
us ? How many wrongs and sins there are, 
which, though the doer by the consent of his will 
makes himself guilty, are yet really the work of 
an evil spirit mightier than his own ! On the other 
hand, who can say how large a part in the life of 
a person of singular excellence, though it be all 
his own, may not really be the work of some spirit 
stronger than his, without whose coworking and 
inworking he would never have been what he is ? 
Yet in these cases it is impossible to distinguish 
between self-born and suggested thoughts, feel- 
ings, and purposes ; nor is the impossibility of 
marking and labelling with precision the incom- 
ings of the Divine Spirit any more a ground for 
scepticism as to the influence of that Spirit, than 
is the like impossibility as to human influence 
a reason for doubting the reality of that influ- 
ence. 

My friends, if this divine influence, this Holy 
Spirit, be not a mere dogma, but a vital and pres- 
ent reality, it belongs to us to seek it, to prepare 
for it, to welcome it. We may so occlude our 
hearts, that even the penetrating Spirit of God 
shall not find free entrance there. We may so 
make ready for it the guest-chamber in the soul, 
so woo its visitings by the prayer of faith and 
love, so seal its welcome by doing as the Spirit 



THE HOLY SPIRIT. 



239 



bids, that its home shall be ever within us, and 
that the formula for our lives, as for that of the 
great apostle, shall be, "Yet not I, but the grace 
of God which is with me." 



240 



CLEAN WAYS. 



XX. 

CLEAN WAYS. 

" Wherewith shall a young man cleanse his way ? By talcing heed thereto 
according to thy word." — Psalm cxix. 9. 

1\JOTHIjS t G is more characteristic of the He- 
brew literature than the aptness and the 
intense force of its metaphors, which underlie the 
whole life of the people, and make almost every 
object and experience the type of something spirit- 
ual. These figures have become so familiar to our 
ears that we are hardly aware that they are used, 
and yet many of them, heard for the first time, 
would impress us so strongly as to change the 
whole current of thought, feeling, and conduct. 
There are three such figures in the text just read, 
and could I make you feel their full significance, I 
could ask, as your friend, to perform for you no 
better office, and you would be thankful through 
your whole coming lives for this verse of the psalm, 
which, I Lave no doubt, has been so often repeated 
in the hearing of some of yon as to have lost all 
the meaning it ever had for you. Let us try to 
recall what it contains. 



CLEAN WAYS. 



241 



I would first ask your attention to the word way. 
"Wherewith shall a young man cleanse his way?" 
A way has a direction, and leads somewhither. A 
way is continuous, and if we are in it, we are ad- 
vancing in it. A way differs in its direction from 
other ways, and diverges more and more from them 
the farther one travels upon it. There is hardly 
any error so perilous as that of imagining that there 
can be isolated acts or states of mind. Every 
present has its closely affiliated future. Every 
deed, every reverie, every thought, is a cause. We 
are moving on in character, as in years. We are 
not to-day what we were a week ago. Has the 
past week been consecrated by prayer, by faithful 
duty, by evil spurned and temptation resisted, — 
we have made a full week's journey heavenward. 
Has the past week been one of scanted work, of 
neglected duty, of forbidden indulgence, — it is not 
merely a "week wasted, but a week of progress in 
evil, and this morning finds us less inclined to the 
right, more propense to the wrong, less our own 
masters, an easier prey to bad example or malign 
influence, than we were a week ago. There are in 
our lives no isolated acts, but only ways. The 
wrong of which you say, u Only this once, and it 
shall never be repeated," provokes its own repeti- 
tion, — starts you in its own direction. The viola- 
tion of truth or integrity, with the expectation and 
11 p 



242 



CLEAN WAYS. 



purpose of retrieving it speedily, involves you in 
a labyrinth of mole-paths, in which you lose your 
way, and may never find your way back. The 
laws of sobriety or purity once transgressed, you 
have not the power which you previously thought 
you had to retrace your steps. You meant an act ; 
you have found it a way, — a precipitous way, too, 
on which you gain momentum with every step. 

Let me beg you, then, to see whither you are 
going, whither your way leads. Start not in a 
direction which you are not willing to follow to 
the end. Take not your first step on any evil 
way, unless you are ready to encounter the dis- 
honor, degradation, misery, and ruin which have 
visibly overtaken the advanced travellers on that 
way. Could I only put you at my own point of 
vision ; could I only reveal to you the life-histories 
that have passed under my eye, and the prognosis 
from the earlier stages of the life-way that has been 
sadly verified and seldom deceived, — I know that 
you would be as afraid of the beginnings of evil as 
you are now of its bitter end. Not that there are 
lacking single instances of evil forsaken, of false 
ways retraced. But these, if you could scan them 
narrowly, would give you no encouragement ; for 
they have been cases of intense inward suffering, 
of purgatorial fires of remorseful sorrow, — often, 
too, of disgrace clinging to the name after it had 



CLEAN WA YS. 



243 



ceased to be deserved, of lost ground never re- 
covered, of lifelong shame, of a permanently 
diminished capacity for good. Moreover, these 
instances, whose prestige is any thing rather than 
hopeful, are but infinitesimally few, compared with 
those in which no space has been found for re- 
pentance. 

Remember, our ways lead on through the death - 
shadow ; and I know that there is but one way on 
which you are willing that death should overtake 
you, — but one way whose steps brighten under 
the shadow, and in which you can hope to walk 
with those whom you would crave as your com- 
panions in the life everlasting. 

" Wherewith shall a young man cleanse his 
way," or, more literally, make his way clean? 
This is a metaphor which appeals vividly to our 
experience. What is there so disheartening as the 
necessity of treading muddy streets? Even the 
glorious sunshine after a heavy shower, with rain- 
drops glittering on every leaf, gives no elastic- 
ity or joyousness to our tread, when we plunge 
with each step into miry clay. There is a con- 
sciousness, almost of disgrace, certainly of utter 
unfitness for the society of those who have 
escaped this foul ordeal. There are miry soul- 
paths, which find their fitting symbol here. Miry 
they are to every eye in their more advanced 



244 



CLEAN WAYS. 



stages ; for there is no evil Gourse in life that does 
not tend by sure and, generally, rapid steps to 
open shame, squalidness, and misery. In these 
same paths there must be at the outset, on the 
part of those who have entered upon them, unless 
self-consciousness be suspended, a conscious, if not 
yet a manifest, uncleanness. 

There is, also, a conscious cleanness of soul, 
which is joy unspeakable, — a condition of char- 
acter in which we cannot but approve ourselves, 
and take complacent delight in introspection. Not 
that we are unaware of faults and shortcomings; 
but there is a state — attainable by every one — in 
which our purposes, our endeavors are all right, — 
in which we harbor no thoughts of evil, have no 
desires but for the true and the good, no aims that 
are not pure, just, and kind, no rebellion of spirit 
against Providence, no malignant feeling toward 
any fellow-being, no past sin for which we have 
not sought forgiveness by forsaking and renouncing 
it, — happy he who has it in his power to add, as I 
trust not a few of us can, no overt act or specific 
portion of the previous life to be looked back 
upon with enduring shame and emphatic self- 
reproach. Such cleanness of soul awakens, in- 
deed, neither vanity nor pride, but only profound 
gratitude to the helping spirit of our Father. Yet 
with this consciousness we would not shrink from 



CLEAN WAYS. 



245 



showing the world what we are. However lowly 
in our self-esteem, we yet know that we belong 
among the pure, true, and loyal spirits, and that 
should the earthly house be dissolved, the tent of 
the body struck, this moment, we should find our- 
selves with such spirits in the house not made 
with hands. In this state of character we shrink 
not from the searching eye of Him to whom all 
hearts are open. His presence with us is ever a 
glad thought, and we know that his perpetual 
benediction rests on our clean life-path. 

But there are no evil ways from which the 
mire does not cleave to the soul, befoul the self- 
consciousness, destroy self-respect, and make the 
presence of the pure and virtuous a condemning 
presence. I do not believe that on any false or 
vicious way one ever feels at ease when he thinks 
of himself; and the only resource must be to 
avoid introspection, to shun solitude, to evade the 
lone hour when the thoughts are forced inward. 
Least of all can the impure self-consciousness 
brook the thought of the divine presence, and an 
evil life is practically an atheistic life. 

Would to Heaven that we might take for the 
soul a lesson from the body ! Personal cleanness 
and pureness were never held in so high esteem, 
their opposites were never in such reproach, as now. 
We sedulously seek, if they are to be had, clean 



246 



CLEAN WATS. 



paths for our feet, and bewail ourselves when we 
cannot find them. We are ashamed, even though 
no other eye be upon us, if we are forced to pro- 
long travel-stain or any squalid condition of 
person or attire. Can it be that there is one so 
imbruted that he feels not the travel-stain of sinful 
ways, — that there is not a close-clinging sense of 
impurity when the soul has debased itself by foul 
deeds, indulgences, or associations ? Must there 
not be a self-loathing, a self-contempt, in those 
who are making themselves vile ? I cannot doubt 
that it is so. I cannot think that a young man 
ever transgresses any law of right without a con- 
sciousness of inward soil, most pitifully in con- 
trast with his previous cleanness of spirit. I 
cannot think that there is one such youth who 
would not most gladly resume his former position. 
But, as I have said, these miry ways are precip- 
itous, and the first step is on the brow of a fearful 
declivity, from which one feels impotent to retract 
his tread. The sole safety is in venturing only on 
clean ways. The avoidance of wrong and evil is, 
God helping, in the power of every one of us. 
We may make and keep our way clean ; once 
defiled, to cleanse it may be beyond our power. 

" Wherewith shall a young man cleanse his 
way? By taking heed thereto according to thy 
word" What is the word of God ? We are 



CLEAN WAYS. 



247 



accustomed to hear the phrase applied to the 
Scriptures, which are, indeed, a record of God's 
word at various times and through divers agen- 
cies. When this psaim was written, the Penta- 
teuch was in the hands of the people, and the 
Mosaic law was as a light shining in a dark place, 
till the day should dawn and the day-star arise ; 
but it is not to this that the Psalmist refers. The 
sacred poets and seers of the Hebrews seldom 
or never designate by the ivord of God a written 
revelation, — a past divine utterance, however 
authentic and sacred. With them the word of 
God is a present word, — a word nigh his children, 
in their hearts and souls. An unerring and un- 
dying conscience, a sense of right and wrong, 
native in the soul of man, is God's word to you 
and me. You, my friends, know the right. There 
is never a question of duty, in which you do not 
know what you ought to do. There is never a 
sinful compliance to which you are tempted or 
urged, of whose moral character you have the 
slightest doubt. If you will only keep your con- 
duct level with your knowledge, there will never 
be an act of your lives, with which a rigidly, yet 
wisely virtuous man will find fault, still less, one 
for which God will hold you guilty. 

If you will examine your self -consciousness, you 
will find that it is never as to the qualities of 



248 



CLEAN WATS. 



actions that you feel doubt or hesitation. The 
questions which perplex you, and which it is 
unspeakably dangerous for a young person to 
begin to ask, are such as these : How far may I 
go in a wrong direction, and yet be sure to go no 
farther ? Is there any harm in a slight compro- 
mise of principle ? Can I not with ultimate 
safety trespass once, or a little way, on forbidden 
ground ? Can I not try the first pleasant, attrac- 
tive steps on a way which I am determined on no 
account to pursue farther ? May I not go as far 
in the wrong as others are going, without reproach 
and without fear ? Is there not some redeeming 
grace in companionship, so that I may venture 
with others a little farther than I would be willing 
to go alone ? May not my conscience under care- 
ful home-training and choice home-examples have 
become more rigid and scrupulous than is befit- 
ting or manly in one who has emerged into com- 
parative freedom? In these questions are the 
beginnings of evil, — the first, it may be, fatal 
steps in miry ways. Your conscience will not 
mislead you ; but you relax its strict control at 
your peril. So long as you obey your conscience, 
you are taking heed to your way according to the 
word of God. 

But this phrase has for us another meaning, — > 
another, yet the same. The Word of God — 



CLEAN WAYS. 



249 



the very same word which speaks to us in con- 
science — has lived incarnate in the one sinless Son 
of Man, or rather, not has lived, but ever lives, 
in the heaven whither he has gone before us and 
where his welcome awaits our following him, in 
his gospel, fresh as when the words of grace and 
truth fell from his lips, in the pure spirits trained 
in his nurture, in the examples of excellence that 
have transmitted his holiness in a line of living 
light all down the Christian ages, and in whom 
the Christ within has shone forth in radiant 
beauty. It is of unspeakable worth to us that 
we have thus in a perfect life an incarnate con- 
science, by whose record our consciences are 
enlightened, quickened, intenerated. As you 
trace the outlines of his character, as you read 
his precepts of piety, faithfulness, and love, there 
is not a trait which you do not see ought to be 
yours, not a rule of life which you do not feel 
sacredly bound to obey. The voice from heaven, 
" This is my beloVed Son, in whom I am well 
pleased," is a voice which your own hearts echo ; 
nor have you the slightest doubt that God is well 
pleased in you, his child, in the proportion in 
which you resemble that best beloved. 

But you may ask, Why a duplicate word of 
God ? If the word of God in conscience be suf- 
ficient, why an incarnate Word? I reply, Con- 
11* 



250 



CLEAN WAYS. 



science, though infallible, is not sufficient. It 
never gives a wrong decision ; but it often fails of 
giving a right decision. While it cannot be bribed 
into falsehood, it may be drugged into silence. 
When on the judgment seat, it utters righteous 
judgment ; but it does not always hold court and 
keep term-time. We are prone to keep causes 
out of court, or to present only partial issues ; and 
conscience, unappealed to, grows slow and slug- 
gish, — disobeyed, subsides into inaction. But a 
living law, a " living way," an example applica- 
ble and imitable in all our life-ways, stimulates 
conscience when inert, animates it when slothful, 
suggests issues for its trial, multiplies occasions for 
its action, and extends its recognized jurisdiction 
to all of the exemplar's life that is parallel with 
ours. 

Still farther, in a concern so essential as our 
spiritual well-being, the duplication of guides on 
our life-way, even were it no more than literal 
duplication, accords with God's method both in 
the material and in the spiritual universe. What- 
ever we need to know he almost always permits us 
to know at the mouth of two witnesses. Thus, in 
all departments of true science, we rely neither .on 
intuition alone, nor on observation or experiment 
alone, but on their concurrent testimony. The 
analogy of God's government might lead us to 



CLEAN WAYS. 



251 



anticipate Christ from conscience, — the incarnate 
Word of God to verify, and to be verified by, the 
word of God in onr souls. Each postulates the 
other. Conscience needs Christ to make it con- 
stant, quick, and keen ; Christ craves conscience 
as his avenue of entrance into the soul of man. 
Conscience takes in Christ, assimilates him into its 
own substance, feeds on him as on its bread from 
heaven ; and Christ incarnates himself anew in the 
conscience thus vivified and nourished. 

Would you, then, make your way clean ? Take 
heed to it according to the word of God, as it 
comes to you in conscience and in Christ. 

One word in closing. Among those whom I 
address there is probably not a single person who 
would not indignantly spurn the thought of a low, 
disgraceful, vicious life, as beneath the meanest 
possibility for his future. But there are two life- 
ways, between which a young man's first choice 
usually lies. One is that on which the youth 
yields himself without questioning to the most 
attractive companionships, — to indulgences near 
the border-line between the forbidden and permis- 
sible, if sanctioned by his friends and associates, — 
to the loosest construction of duty and the widest 
liberty of speech that pass current in their circle. 
The other is that on which the twin guidance 
of conscience and of Christ is chosen, and never 



252 



CLEAN WAYS. 



parted from. The former is a way which, never 
looks so well as at its starting-point, and in which 
miry passages very early befoul the traveller in his 
own consciousness and in the eyes of all who have 
the least true discernment of character. The lat- 
ter we have seen only with growing complacency, 
admiration, and gladness, — a way brightening as 
it advances, yet so radiant even in early youth 
that added lustre is a fresh surprise, still a sur- 
prise that grows and multiplies with years, till in 
ripened manhood, or the not decline, but culmina- 
tion of old age, there seems to rest a heavenly 
glory on the life which, from childhood onward, 
has kept only clean ways under the guidance of 
God's word. 



CONVERSATION. 



253 



XXI. 

CONVERSATION. 

" Let your speech he alway with grace, seasoned with salt." — Colos- 
sians iv. 6. 

"V\ 7HEN we call a person a brilliant speaker, we 
nse an idiom which runs back to an antiq- 
uity beyond our tracing. The same Greek noun 
means both man and light, and it is derived from a 
root which means both to speak and to shine. The 
ideas which underlie this verbal kindred are that 
man is the light of this lower world, and that it is 
through speech that he shines, so that he who does 
not keep his lips from malice and guile cannot 
fulfil the command, " Let your light so shine be- 
fore men, that they may glorify your Father in 
heaven." 

In the epistle of St. James — the most profound 
and discriminating ethical treatise of which I have 
any knowledge — we are told that he who does not 
offend in word is a perfect man. I believe this. 
We see many men and women so good that we 
can never find any ground for blame in them ex- 



254 



CONVERSATION. 



cept in word ; but who is there that is not some- 
times betrayed into utterances which he has reason 
to regret? Even the apostles, while the Pente- 
costal baptism was still moist upon their brows, 
could not keep this besetting sin at bay ; their 
historian, with characteristic frankness, records 
several instances in which hard, sharp, bitter words 
passed between members of the sacred college ; 
and St. Peter — by no means least of the offenders 
— names as the crowning excellence of him who 
" did no sin," that " neither was guile found in his 
mouth," and that " when he was reviled, he reviled 
not again ; when he suffered, he threatened not." 

I might talk to you about the sins of speech, and 
night would close down upon us before I had 
uttered in caution the half of what might deserve 
to be marked, learned, and inwardly digested. 
But the best way of escaping or reforming faults 
is to cultivate the opposite excellencies. I pro- 
pose, therefore, to show, so far as I can, what 
should be the traits, rules, and aims of truly Chris- 
tian conversation. Our text comprehends all that 
can be said, in a single sentence. Let us develop 
its meaning. 

There is no more suggestive word than grace, 
which — I would say in passing — corresponds in 
root, sound, and sense with the Greek word which 
it is used to translate. It denotes love, and seems 



CONVERSATION. 



255 



always to have a divine reference, designating the 
love of God, either as it resides in him, as it is in- 
carnated in Christ, or as it is reflected from man. 
I think that even in our secular use of the word 
there is this tacit reference to a divine ideal. By 
grace we mean more than heartless polish, surface- 
beauty, or manners disjoined from virtue. The 
word mounts readily to our lips only where the 
well-endowed soul, kind, pure, devout, gives form 
to the outward life. 

By speech with grace, the apostle, I suppose, 
does not mean what is commonly called, often mis- 
called, religious conversation. This is good in fit 
time and place, and is always seasonable between 
those who need and those who can impart advice 
or consolation, and among those who can render to 
one another substantial aid and encouragement in 
the religious life. But it is distasteful and injuri- 
ous when obtruded on unfit occasions ; worthless, 
when it runs into perplexing technicalities ; offen- 
sive, when it degenerates into unmeaning cant ; 
mischievous, when it feeds the habit of morbid 
introspection and self-suspicion, and thus creates a 
spiritual hypochondria analogous to the imaginary 
maladies that result from talking too much about 
physiology. But there is a grace which, blending 
with speech on all sorts of subjects and occasions, 
may make the whole intercourse of life religious, 



256 



CONVERSATION. 



because frank, true, kind, and reverent. I can 
conceive that our Saviour, when he sat with his 
friends at Bethany, talked with them, not only 
about God and heaven, bat about their family his- 
tory, their friends, their earthly concerns and pros- 
pects ; yet there must have been in all that he said 
that which indicated him as the Holy One of God. 
Thus should it be with his followers. While, so 
far from studying a restricted range of topics, they 
enter freely into all timely subjects, grave or gay, 
general or personal, it should be their aim, or, 
rather, the spontaneous movement of the spirit of 
Christ within them, to have their " speech always 
with grace." Let us look in detail at some of the 
traits of grace that should characterize the conver- 
sation of Christians. 

It may seem superfluous to name truth as the 
first requisite ; for it might be said that the Chris- 
tian has, of course — to use the sturdy Saxon idiom 
of our English Bible — " put away lying." He 
has, indeed, if sincere, " put away " all voluntary 
and deliberate falsehood. Yet are not many really 
excellent persons careless as to exact and literal 
truth? On their lips does not a surmise some- 
times take the place of a fact, — a dim and cloudy 
reminiscence, of a clear recollection, — a report 
through unknown and irresponsible channels, of an 
authentic statement? Are those who would not 



CONVERSATION. 



257 



for their right hands make a lie always equally 
scrupulous about lies made by others, or those that 
grow from tongue to tongue ? There is hardly a 
possible deviation from the truth, in any important, 
especially in any personal, matter, which may not 
either do mischief to others, or, on being confronted 
with the fact, reflect just discredit on him who 
gives it currency. Yet how few persons are there 
who are content to confine what they say within 
the limits of what they know ! There are so many 
things beyond these limits, which will give zest and 
animation to social intercourse, will entertain and 
amuse ; while literal speech — every word weighed 
in the scales of conscience — is so jejune and dull. 
Yet speech thus weighed will often save one from 
fearful responsibility as an accomplice in mischief, 
wrong, and evil, and will minister largely to the 
possession of that priceless inward grace, " a con- 
science void of offence toward God and man." 

Nearly allied to truth ia the utterance of what 
purports to be fact is sincerity in the expression of 
opinions and feelings. According to an old apo- 
logue, all the inhabitants of the earth once agreed 
to raise a shout at a certain specified moment, that 
the blended voices of the whole human race might 
reach the moon ; but when the designated moment 
arrived, every man, woman, and child, except one 
man in China who was stone-deaf, stood silent, 

Q 



258 



CONVERSATION. 



with suspended breath, in a listening attitude. In 
like manner, on numerous subjects on which the 
clear utterance of all who think soberly would be 
as efficient in demolishing the wrong or establish- 
ing the right as was the trumpet-blast of the 
Israelites in overthrowing the walls of Jericho, or 
Amphion's tyre in building those of Thebes, good 
men, Christian men, pause to listen when they 
ought to speak, or utter themselves as ambiguously 
as the Delphic oracle, that their words may bear 
an interpretation favorable to whichever side may 
prevail. The consequence is, that what is called 
public opinion on subjects of prime importance is 
often manufactured by those interested on the 
wrong side. While there is no wind at all, the}' 
set the great, high vane that every one sees, and 
nail it fast so that it cannot turn, and then the 
breath of uttered opinion gradually swells into a 
breeze which takes the same direction with the 
vane. Now there is no moral force on earth so 
mighty as would be the candid, free, outspoken 
opinion of Christian men and women, — their strong 
and full utterance in conformity with their honest 
convictions. Such utterance is an essential part of 
the trust reposed in each member of society for the 
common good. There are tolerated in every com- 
munity wrongs and abuses, which would not out- 
last a single week of plain and honest protest by, 



CONVERSATION. 



259 



or in behalf of those whom they injure or imperil. 
The sincerit}' which I would urge on such subjects 
should be regarded as inseparable from the op^n 
confession of Christ, or of Christian principle in 
the aggregate ; and, were it not a matter of sad ex- 
perience, it would seem incredible that so many 
are willing to deny in detail the very truth which, 
as a whole, they hesitate not to acknowledge and 
defend, thus dismembering the Saviour, and cruci- 
fying him by piecemeal. 

I spoke, also, of sincerity in the expression of 
feeling. Sincerity or silence should be the alter- 
native. Were it so, we should set ourselves dili- 
gently at work to cure what we now, perhaps, 
seek only to disguise. Bad feeling, discontent, 
dislike, envy, malignity, ought not, indeed, to be 
uttered ; but while they rankle in the heart, their 
opposites should not be forced into hypocritical 
utterance. Let the artifice employed to give 
shapely and truth-like expression to the proper 
feelings which we do not feel, be exchanged for 
the self-reforming endeavor to suppress and reno- 
vate in our hearts all to which we should blush to 
give utterance. But every genuine feeling which 
is worthily entertained demands and merits un- 
constrained and warm expression. Such expres- 
sion gives health and vigor to the emotional 
nature, as free breathing in a bracing atmos- 



260 



CONVERSATION. 



phere to the lungs. Admiration, generous enthu- 
siasm of every kind, mirth, the love of beauty in 
nature and in art, and all the kindly sympathies 
of life, by natural and hearty utterance, at once 
gain strength and diffuse pleasure, bless those 
who speak and those who hear ; while he who 
keeps right and honest feelings under a perpetual 
restraint becomes the cold and passionless clod he 
tries to seem, and is a very iceberg to the society 
that ought to be warmed and cheered by what- 
ever of emotional fervor there might be in him. 

I pass now to the essential grace of kindness. 
The tongue is the chief instrument of, the chief 
hinderance to, charity. It blesses more effectu- 
ally, it wounds more keenly, than any other 
agency. Indeed, what is charity without it? It 
is only the very abject that can enjoy mere alms. 
In unnumbered instances what is coldly given, or 
accompanied with words of undeserved chiding, or 
of that pity which hardly differs from disdain, 
starves and chills the soul while it feeds and 
warms the body, discourages self-help, deadens 
the hope of better things, and thus adds bitterness 
to penury ; while there are words which bless 
even the very poor more than gifts, which call 
forth in them slumbering resources for their own 
relief, lift them up toward the condition from 
which they have fallen, revive a hope that is often 



CONVERSATION. 



261 



the earnest of its own fulfilment, and supply that 
healing for the broken spirit without which mere 
alms-giving but prolongs the death-struggle with 
adversity. 

In ordinary social life, too, kind speech is de- 
manded beyond all other forms of kindness. In 
families and among friends, were you to place on 
one side the unhappinesses, alienations, enmities, 
mutual wrongs, of which careless, unjust, or un- 
kind speech is the cause, and on the other side 
those that spring from every conceivable cause 
independent of speech, the latter pile would be 
to the former what the mole-hill is to the moun- 
tain; and if from the lesser heap you were to take 
away those the causes of whose causes in the sec- 
ond, third, or fourth degree were evil tongues, you 
would probably make the mole-hill level with the 
ground. How many, at every moment and in 
every social circle, are the spirits temporarily 
wounded or permanently aggrieved through the 
unkind license, too often of Christian lips, — 
through whispered calumny or covert innuendo, 
through words of untempered irritation and bit- 
terness, or through that malignant artifice which 
conceals its point in honeyed phrase, like a wea- 
pon wreathed with flowers ! How immeasurably 
would our social happiness be enhanced, were 
unvarying kindness the law of our lips ! What 



262 



CONVERSATION. 



beneficent agency can be compared with that of him 
or her in whose ears all scandal lies buried, all 
calumny rests unrepeated; who deems the fountain 
of the lips hallowed for gentle ministries ; who 
sincerely seeks, in daily intercourse, to soothe and 
encourage, enlighten and reform, refine and ele- 
vate, comfort and bless? 

But that our speech be always kind, it is not 
enough that we pull up every root of bitterness in 
the heart. There is a great deal of unkind speech 
that is not meant to be so, — heedless, ill-timed, 
without sufficient thought of the sensibilities of 
those with whom we are talking. The fibres of 
human feeling are tremulously sensitive to an un- 
skilled touch ; and, while the false ostentation of 
kindness is contemptible, we cannot commend too 
highly the study and cultivation — under the im- 
pulse of heart-kindness — of the rare and difficult 
skill by which we may adapt ourselves to the 
tastes and in wreathe ourselves with the sympa- 
thies of those with whom we are brought into 
intercourse. 

I ought perhaps to make modesty — my next 
grace of speech — a subdivision under the last; 
for, without modesty, though speech be kindly 
meant, it can hardly be kindly taken. " In honor 
preferring one another," is an essential rule of 
the "speech always with grace." Vanity, self- 



CONVERSA TION. 



263 



assertion, the desire to shine, the ambition for 
effect, and the opinionativeness which alwaj^s 
knows that it is in the right and that all others 
are in the wrong, barely tolerable when connected 
with really brilliant powers, in persons not above 
mediocrity are absolutely disgusting. Mutual en- 
tertainment and instruction are the chief uses of 
conversation; and these ends are utterly defeated, 
when one assumes as his of right the foremost 
place, and sits as an oracle, or when one manifestly 
cares more about being admired than about im- 
parting either information or amusement. He 
who would converse with grace must be capable 
of patient listening, and must have a hospitable 
ear no less than a ready tongue. 

Reverence is, also, an essential grace of conver- 
sation. Where the tone of reverence is low, even 
with some sincerely Christian persons, there is a 
vicious tendency to introduce sacred names, top- 
ics, or phrases, whenever they may give zest or 
raciness to an anecdote, point a jest, or barb a rep- 
artee. But this should be shunned for the same 
reason for which openly profane speech is to be 
most deprecated; namely, that the thoughts whose 
appropriate language passes into careless and 
trivial use are thus belittled and degraded, and so 
lose their hold on the inward sentiment of wor- 
ship. Not only, therefore, should the non-rever- 



264 



CONVERSATION. 



ent use of holy words be deemed unworthy of a 
Christian ; but when, as may often be the case, the 
natural track of conversation leads near the oracles 
of God, and sacred themes are discussed or re- 
ferred to, there should always be in our speech 
that which corresponds to the taking off of the 
shoes on holy ground, — a reverence of manner 
conformed to the heart-reverence, which cannot 
but be exhaled if left unemboclied. 

St. Paul's rule for conversation is not grace 
alone, but " grace seasoned with salt ; " that is, 
not insipid, as talk that is negatively good, and 
especially that which is expressly meant to be 
good, often is. It is the frequent lack of salt that 
has brought (so-called) religious conversation into 
such low repute ; for many persons imagine that 
they are performing a sacred and edifying service, 
if they can only string holy words together, how- 
ever lean or trite the thought may be; whereas, on 
the other hand, the more grace there is in the 
words, the more salt do they need to make them 
palatable, to render them worthy of themes so 
vast and high, and to give honor and worship to 
these themes in the minds of those that hear. 

In the intercourse of daily life, in visiting and 
in social gatherings, there is, it seems to me, 
where there is no positive fault, a frequent indif- 
ference to the staple and character of the conver- 



CONVERSATION. 



265 



sation, — a willingness merely to fill up the time 
with a continuous flow of words, no matter with 
how little sense, or wit, or even freshness. But 
the Christian should regard the capacity for con- 
versation as a talent to be employed for essential 
and precious uses. For many this mode of inter- 
course is the chief medium both of recreation and 
of instruction. More than almost any thing else, it 
makes home attractive, and gives a charm to soci- 
ety. For very many it supersedes diversions both 
frivolous and extravagant ; for not a few, diver- 
sions dangerous and harmful. It is not suffi- 
ciently considered that for young men of the 
highest promise, conversation piquant, entertain- 
ing, and exciting is often the first attraction in con- 
vivial circles and vicious associations ; and were 
there equal vivacity, wit, humor, versatility, in 
their homes and among their kindred and friends, 
the love of their pure and healthful society would 
be the most powerful of all counter-charms against 
bad company. 

In order to talk well, there must be not the self- 
ish ambition to shine, but the unselfish wish to 
please and profit. To this end we must not enter 
into conversation lazily and listlessly. It is not 
thus that we engage in other recreations. In them 
we recognize and experience the law of our na- 
ture, that the change of work is in itself recrea- 
12 



266 CONVERSATION. 
» 

tion. There is no game of strength or skill to 
which we do not biing our best powers, though 
other powers than those enlisted in our more 
serious occupations ; and these last find their re- 
pose and their renewed vigor in the alternation. 

We need to train ourselves to bear our part in 
social intercourse. We should keep ourselves 
conversant with all the current interests, all the 
dominant topics of the time, and should exercise 
our own minds upon them ; so that we may not 
reproduce the stale and hackneyed common-places 
of the daily press or the talk of the street, but 
may offer views that bear the stamp of thought, 
and have, at least in form and phrase, something 
peculiarly our own. We should not evade the 
labor, always pleasant when habitual, of discuss- 
ing topics of interest, maintaining and defending 
our own opinions, and drawing out in friendly 
skirmish diverging or opposing opinions or argu- 
ments. 

He who would talk well must also read much 
and well : and he should in his reading have two 
aims, — the one, to be conversant with what every 
person reads and is ready to talk about ; the 
other, to have his own specialty, from which he 
can add to the common stock of knowledge, and 
enlarge in his circle the range of subjects of intel- 
ligent interest. A person who is intimately con- 



CONVERSATION. 



267 



versant with some one department of literature, 
art, or science, not generally cultivated, may find 
numerous opportunities for giving entertainment 
and instruction, without conceit or pedantry. 

There is, again, as to conversational power, the 
widest difference between him who moves ever as 
in a blind study, and him who goes through ' 
life with eyes and ears always open. The inci- 
dents of a journey, of a walk through crowded 
streets or a stroll in the country, the treasured 
experiences of distant or foreign travel, the cu- 
rious information gleaned from transient fellow- 
wayfarers, the contents of an old book on a 
tavern-table, may add largely to one's materials 
for pleasant and appetizing conversation. Daniel 
Webster said, not long before his death, that 
among the most valuable materials — often of 
essential importance — for his political discourses 
and his arguments at the bar, had been those thus 
picked up by the way-side, and that it had been 
his life -long habit to employ such opportunities, 
with the utmost diligence, with a view to the con- 
tingent benefit to be derived from them. Much 
more availing would accumulations of this sort be 
for the much more various occasions of general 
intercourse. 

If we would talk well, we must throw ourselves 
unreservedly into social intercourse, instead of 



268 



CONVERSATION, 



keeping up our own insulated trains of thought, 
listening by snatches, and answering at hap-haz- 
ard. If we want to meditate, let it be in solitude. 
If we talk, that is our work for the time being, 
and we should put into it the best that there is in 
us. If the theme be grave, let it have our ripest 
thoughts in well-weighed utterance ; if gay, let us 
contribute whatever we can of mirth pure, chaste, 
and kindly, — of wit, without petulance or mal- 
ice, — of humor, always free from sarcasm and 
ill-nature. Best of all is the commingling of the 
grave and the gay, — the discussion of subjects 
worthy of our interest as intelligent, responsible, 
immortal beings, with the lambent play of imagi- 
nation, fancy, and the lighter and more festive 
elements of social intercourse, — that gravity may 
not lapse into dulness, nor gayety evanesce into 
levity and folly. 

But with the salt let the Christian never forget 
the grace. Not mere amusement must be his aim, 
but edification, in its true sense ; that is, the build- 
ing up of the social edifice, with its substantial 
foundation, frame, and walls of solid principle, 
noble aims, and high aspirations, with its finer 
fretwork and tracery that shall lack no element of 
beauty. There are occasions on which he must 
speak directly and cogently in defence of the truth 
and the right, — must advise, warn, encourage, 



CONVERSATION. 



269 



plead his Master's cause, and sometimes even deal 
rebuke and censure. There are more numerous 
occasions, when, with a heart always loyal, he can 
serve the cause of virtue and piety much more 
efficiently by talking on common subjects with the 
sincerity, truth, purity, and kindness which be- 
long to him as a follower of Christ, and by drop- 
ping unostentatiously, ever and anon, a word in 
season that may in those that hear be a seedling 
thought for the spiritual harvest. I once knew a 
most devoted Christian minister, of whom it was 
said that he never uttered in private aught that 
could be taken for a homily, and never seemed to 
talk religiously, yet never left a friend or a com- 
pany of friends without having said something 
that had made a profound impression for good, — 
often in a playful attack or rejoinder, amusing at 
the time for its point, but for a point that struck 
deep and left its ineffaceable mark ; and, many 
years after he had gone to his reward, old men 
and women loved to rehearse these sayings of his 
which they had never forgotten, and for which 
they had been the better for their lives long. 
One of the most upright and honest men I ever 
knew told me in his old age that, so far as he 
had been saved from the besetting sins of trade, 
his freedom from them was due to a jocose but 
profoundly significant remark of his pastor, as he 



270 



CONVERSATION. 



sat with him on his counter on the very first day 
that he commenced business for himself. Skill 
like this few of us may possess ; but, with the 
ever-wakeful spirit of service, there are none of 
us who have not the frequent opportunity for 
the highest usefulness, which we may exert with- 
out pretence or show or cant, by simply letting 
our light shine naturally in our common inter- 
course, — keeping it always in the candlestick, 
instead of hiding it under a bushel, as we are 
so prone to do, except on solemn occasions and 
in formal utterances. He who thus lives makes 
the nearest approach that can be made to the spirit 
and character of Him whose record is that "he 
went about doing good/' 

Much more I would gladly say ; but I have 
already taxed your attention too long. One word, 
however, in conclusion. By the standard which I 
have presented, who of us is there that can acquit 
himself of sins and shortcomings? Yet some of 
us have certainly desired and endeavored to be in 
this regard all that we ought to be. It is in these 
details of daily life, constant, ever-varying, and, 
though in appearance minute, of the intensest 
significance and moment, that we most of all feel 
our weakness and our neecliness. Left to our- 
selves, we cannot, even in this matter of speech, 
which seems so easy, govern ourselves. We can- 



CONVERSATION. 



271 



not so guard our lips that they shall not give us 
ground for regret and self-reproach. But in this, 
as in every department of duty, we can do all 
things through Christ strengthening us ; and we 
know that, in the measure of our intimacy with 
his spirit, our words will be redolent of the love, 
purity, and sweetness that are in him. If, then, 
we thus need him in our uneventful daily inter- 
course, how can we suffer ourselves to remain out 
of the pale of his guidance and salvation ? 



272 HEBREW, GREEK, AND LATIN. 



XXII. 



HEBREW, GREEK, AND LATIN. 



" And Pilate wrote a title, and put it on the cross. And the writing was, 
Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews. And it was written in 
Hebrew, and Greek, and Latin." — John xix. 19, 20. 



HERE is a great deal of unconscious prophecy. 



A striking instance of it is contained in the 
record which I have taken for my text. Here jest 
grows into earnest. Words meant in derision are 
verified in solemn fact. The mock-title becomes a 
name of glory ; and the very languages in which 
the insult was triplicated, as if to give it a three- 
fold bitterness of contempt and scorn, are most 
honored in having first borne the message of that 
cross over the civilized world. 

These languages represent in their very structure 
three entirely unlike types of character. The He- 
brew has grandeur, but no grace. It thrills the 
hearer with awe in the solemn chant or recitative 
of the synagogue ; but it early ceased to be a ver- 
nacular tongue in the common transactions of life, 
to which it can never have been so adapted as to 




HEBREW, GREEK, AND LATIN. 273 



have done good service in the kitchen or at the 
work-bench. The Greek is spoken beauty, — mel- 
lifluous, flexible, lending itself to every form of 
social intercourse, the ally of art and song, of the 
feast and the dance ; yet fit speech for nymphs 
rather than for angels, for an earthly paradise 
rather than for the house not made with hands. 
The Latin is precise, compact, terse, and vigorous 
to the last degree, in its better days with no loose 
joints, no feeble idioms, — the language of com- 
mand, of resolute purpose and decisive action, 
whose very study is a tonic. These three tongues 
were all familiar to the Jewish ear in the time of 
Christ, — the Hebrew, as still the language of wor- 
ship, and as the base of the mixed dialect used in 
secular life ; the Greek, as spoken by educated 
men of all nations ; the Latin, as the official lan- 
guage of the Roman government. 

These languages correspond to the forms of cult- 
ure, which, not fresh and vigorous, but degenerate 
and effete, were grouped together, yet without 
commingling, in every city and land : for the He- 
brews had long been a migratory people ; the 
Greeks were the preceptors of the world in art, 
literature, and philosophy ; while Roman soldiers 
and officials, of course, swarmed in all parts of 
the empire. 

The Hebrews, alike in their best and their worst 
12* R 



274 



HEBREW, GREEK, AND LATIN. 



days, in their culmination and their decline, were 
pre-eminently a religious people. Even when they 
lapsed into idolatry, they were in sad earnest ; and 
from the time of the Babylonish captivity they 
were attached, with a tenacity that has no parallel 
in history, to the worship of Jehovah, and to the 
letter of their ancient law as of divine authority. 
Their first temple, long anterior to the birth of 
Grecian art, was in its time the most costly and 
magnificent edifice in the world ; and their appa- 
ratus of worship was more thoroughly organized, 
more sumptuous, and, though not without features 
that bespoke a barbaric age, more majestic than 
any other ritual prior to the full material develop- 
ment of Romanism. Nor was Judaism in its ear- 
lier days a mere ritual. Its psalms will to the end 
of time remain unsurpassed in tenderness and 
grandeur. Its prophets, in the loftiness of their 
devotion, and in their gorgeous pictures of the 
Messianic reign, had a far higher inspiration than 
ever flowed from Castalia or Helicon. But in the 
time of Christ the harp of praise vibrated only in a 
few faithful, waiting souls. The national religion 
had divorced itself from progressive culture and 
from active life, and had lapsed into a punctilious 
formalism. The temple-worship retained much of 
its exterior majesty, but had lost its soul. 

The Greek culture was distinguished, beyond 



HEBREW, GREEK, AND LATIN. 275 



that of all other nations ancient and modern, by 
the sovereignty of beauty. It deified all the fairest 
forms of nature and humanity. It gave a trans- 
cendent grace and charm to daily life. It sur- 
rounded common objects with refining associations. 
Its art arrived at a perfectness which is the despair 
of these latter ages. In every merely material 
direction it reached a summit of excellence which 
has been approached, never attained, by modern 
civilization. But it lacked the religious element; 
for the worship of forms fashioned by human skill 
and genius was an exercise, not of piety, but of 
taste, and so far as the worshipper looked behind 
these forms, and gave credence to the myths from 
which they took shape, his reverence could only 
have ministered to his degradation. The highest 
type of the Grecian intellect, too, lacked nerve, 
vigor, and persistency. Not the Spartan, indeed, 
but the Athenian, was fickle, the slave of impulse, 
by turns brave and cowardly, loyal and treacher- 
ous, the tyrannicide and the supple instrument of 
usurped authority. Under these deteriorating in- 
fluences the Grecian culture had lapsed into a 
feeble sensualism, winning still, but corrupting ; 
and the people, slaves or adventurers in every 
land, carried with them art and philosophy, and 
y at the same time luxury, effeminacy, and the vices . 
that are wont to follow in their train. 



276 HEBREW, GREEK, AND LATIN. 



The Roman culture was that of unbending law, 
rigid discipline, and hardy self-control, maintained 
in the primitive age by a strong government and 
by the enforced subordination of class to class. In 
that early time the standard of individual virtue 
and of domestic purity was high ; and though the 
Romans were from the first a nation of conquerors, 
their justice, covenant-keeping, and good faith 
made willing subjects of the conquered nations, 
and gave unity, compactness, and strength to their 
growing empire. But though their gods were of a 
higher order than those of the Grecian pantheon ; 
though in the better days of the republic there 
seems to have been no little sincerity in their 
worship, especially in the ritual of which each 
separate gens and each single family were the cus- 
todians, — their advancing knowledge soon outgrew 
their faith, and their religion became a nonentity 
to the more enlightened, a mere police-force to the 
credulous populace. Rude, and averse from all 
refining influences, they were at first jealous of the 
intrusion of the higher civilization of Greece, and, 
when they could no longer keep it at bay, they 
succumbed to its vices far more readily than they 
imbibed its humanities. At the Christian era, 
moral corruption, rapacity, and avarice had replaced 
the robust virtues of their ancestors ; and though 
they still gave law to the civilized world, they had 



HEBREW, GREEK, AND LATIN. 277 



lost the severity of self-restraint, and already 
showed unmistakable tokens of an empire which 
had reached its term, and must soon become inured 
to defeat, disaster, and decline. 

These were the effete forms of culture, whose 
signature was written over the cross. Each had 
dwindled and was ready to perish for lack of the 
others. They belong together. They are parts or 
complements, each of the others. Religion may 
exist alone in the individual soul ; but, as an ele- 
ment of social and national life, it needs all the 
humanities, — it must make taste, beauty, art, 
refinement, its satellites, — it must ally itself to all 
that can give grace and dignity to home and to 
social institutions. Religion, too, can live only as 
a working force. " Not slothful in business, fer- 
vent in spirit," are inseparable characteristics of 
its development in communities and nations. Art, 
in its turn, needs religion for its purity, its gran- 
deur, its benign influence as an educational 
agency. It equally needs the element of law, to 
counteract its enervating influence, and to blend 
vigor with grace, strength with beauty. Law, 
also, demands a higher sanction than its own. 
This is typified in the myth of JEgeria as the 
inspirer of Numa's legislation ; and who can say 
how far, in the days of rude credulity, a belief in 
accordance with that myth may have made the 



278 HEBREW, GREEK, AND LATIN. 



Romans a law-abiding people ? It is only when 
law is recognized as divine in its source, and hu- 
man legislation as man's best effort to embody 
God's law in his own, that the institutions of gov- 
ernment and the organism of society can be both 
stable and progressive, — stable in the loyalty of 
the people, progressive with their growth. Law 
requires, too, that its sternness be relieved by the 
humanizing influence of art, taste, and aesthetic 
culture. 

Jesus combines in his person these three forms 
of culture. He is emphatically King of the Jews ; 
for the love and the worship of God are his royal 
robe and diadem, — the intensity of the religious 
life is betrayed in his every utterance, — the 
formula of his whole being is embraced in those 
words of the beloved apostle, " The Son who is 
in the bosom of the Father." He is more than 
Grecian in the grace, amenity, and sweetness of his 
spirit and his walk among men. He is more than 
Roman in the perfectness with which he makes 
himself the incarnate law of God, and alone, 
among those born of woman, finishes the whole 
work that God gave him to do. 

These elements are blended, unified, in the 
Christian worthy of the name. The developed 
Christian character has the fervent religiousness 
of the Hebrew psalmists and seers, only with less 



HEBREW, GREEK, AND LATIN. 279 



of the Sinai than of the Zion type. However 
destitute of the wonted means of culture, it takes 
on, or rather takes in, a culture of its own, sweet, 
gentle, kind, spiritual, so that the grace of God 
assumes forms which man can recognize as grace- 
ful. It is, also, a law-abiding spirit, submitting, 
indeed, not as to a hard yoke, but as to a loving 
service ; and law gives it a forceful energy, which 
pervades the whole life-work, and makes it con- 
stant, loyal, noble. These traits are united in all 
the exemplars of Christian excellence, not, indeed, 
in the perfect equipoise which is seen in Jesus 
alone, but each in a sufficient measure to show 
whence it came, and to distinguish it from traits 
elsewhere derived and otherwise nourished. We 
can trace this threefold culture, not only in those 
who fill high places and wield an extended influ- 
ence, but equally in the lowliest and least privi- 
leged spheres. Wherever in humble and obscure 
life you find a person of untaught grace of mien 
and speech, and rigidly faithful in the least re- 
quirements of d.uty, you may trace also the more 
than Hebrew religiousness, and you may " take 
knowledge " of such a one that he " has been 
with Jesus." 

We have in the threefold caption of the cross 
our own directory of duty. Religion, the inmost 
consecration of the soul to God, the hidden life 



280 HEBREW, GREEK, AND LATIN. 



with him in prayer, praise, and love, is the prime 
element. It can be replaced by no acuteness in 
logomachy, by no zeal for dogmas, by no sesthetic 
devotion to rites and forms, by no punctiliousness 
of external observance. Christ reigns only in the 
soul that has been led by him into intimate com- 
munion with the Father. 

But let it be ever borne in mind that religion is 
not for the individual soul alone. It is a power 
which should diffuse itself in benignant influence 
throughout its whole sphere of action; and this 
it can do only by alliance with whatever adorns, 
sweetens, and elevates the life of man. There has 
been prevalent, in many quarters, a religiousness 
destitute of grace, unattractive, nay, even repul- 
sive. There are those who think that they best 
serve God by spurning many of his choicest gifts. 
The asceticism of more ignorant ages still perpetu- 
ates itself in the severity with which the whole 
festive side of life is regarded. To not a few 
minds religion is associated with austerity and 
gloom, simply because those who present the 
most ostentatious show of piety seem intent on 
making the service of God appear unamiable and 
his supremacy over the soul a harsh despotism. 
If those who seek to be Christians would only 
prize and cultivate the beauty of holiness ; if in 
them Religion were clothed in her rightful gar- 



HEBREW, GREEK, AND LATIN. 281 



ments, the gala-attire which belongs to her as an 
every-day dress, — they would be much more 
truly and efficiently missionaries for the faith than 
they could be by any kind or amount of personal 
appeal or stringent propagandism. Only let the 
light shine fair and clear, without murkiness or 
flickering, — there will be no need of thrusting it 
in men's faces ; its radiance will of itself attract 
and win. I say these things, not because we are 
in any danger of asceticism ; but we are in danger 
from the false impressions derived or transmit- 
ted from it. Some of us may perhaps have learned, 
from the less lovely manifestations of religious feel- 
ing, to look upon religion as at the opposite pole 
from refinement and elegant culture, — as Hebrew, 
and not in any wise Hellenistic ; while Christianity 
has done its true work, only when it has Hellen- 
ized religion, and Hebraized art, taste, and beauty, 
translating into flowing Greek the square, rude 
characters in which Christ's own countrymen read 
" Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews." 

We need equally the Roman element of law to 
make us Christians indeed. In the words of 
our familiar hymn, " the salvation " must indeed 
"reign within;" but the only sign that we can 
give or have of its inward reign is that 

" Grace subdue the power of sin ; 
While justice, temperance, truth, and love 
Our inward piety approve. " 



282 HEBREW, GREEK, AND LATIN. 



A thoroughly obedient and dutiful life, pervaded 
by the spirit of service, constantly asking, " Lord, 
what wilt thou have me to do ? " and govern- 
ing itself by the answer, is the outcome of the 
Christian consciousness, the result of nurture in 
the school of Christ ; for " he only that doeth the 
will of my Father in heaven," says Jesus, "shall 
enter into the kingdom." We often hear the 
phrase, — profession of religion. I do not like it. 
It does harm. I believe that its association with 
the Lord's Supper has kept away from it thou- 
sands of modest souls who to the Master of the 
feast would have been among the most welcome 
guests. There are times, indeed, when, in antag- 
onism to scepticism or scoffing, there should be 
plain and explicit utterance of the faith and hope 
that are in us. But in ordinary life our life-work 
should be our profession of religion, and it is the 
only true profession that we can make ; for into 
that work we put the best that is in us, and from 
it we throw off proof-impressions of ourselves in 
the earnestness, fidelity, and thoroughness, or the 
negligence and slackness, with which we discharge 
our daily duty. 

Thus in the true Christian is effected the union 
typified by the threefold inscription over the 
cross ; and when he who was then written King 
of the Jews shall reign throughout the world, and 



HEBREW, GREEK, AND LATIN. 283 



all the kingdoms of the earth shall be his, the 
name which the seer of Patmos saw inscribed on 
the Saviour's vesture, King of Kings and Lord 
of Lords, shall be written in Hebrew, Greek, and 
Latin, — in ceaseless prayer and praise that shall 
make the two worlds as one ; in the beauty and 
harmony that shall betoken the Paradise of God 
among men ; in the loyal service in which God's 
will shall be done on earth as in heaven. 



284 PREPARATION FOB THE FUTURE. 



xxin. 



PREPARATION FOR THE FUTURE. 



(to young men.) 



" They that were foolish took their lamps, and took no oil with them" 



HEY were too late at the bridegroom's house, 



— those improvident virgins. Their lamps 
had seemed in good trim while they were not 
needed in the procession ; but at the last moment 
they found them burning low, and before they 
could replenish their cans, the procession had 
passed, the door was shut, and they were left out 
in the dark. 

My friends, this may be your or my story in the 
future ; or we may take the warning, and avert 
the doom. We may have oil enough for present 
use, yet not enough for emergencies that are im- 
pending and certain ; or we may stow away enough 
for all possible uses. Preparation for whatever may 
come, the laying in of such supplies as shall suf- 
fice for every impending need, is the lesson of this 
parable. This is the aim in all human structures 



Matthew xxv. 3. 




PREPARATION FOR THE FUTURE. 285 



that are wisely planned and carefully made. Men 
build or construct with a view to what may happen. 
Have you ever examined a new-built ship ready 
for her first voyage ? Those thick-ribbed sides, 
that close studding of bolts, those Cyclopean knees, 
that compact massiveness of frame and finish, seem 
no less impregnable than the cliffs that line the 
shore and breast the waves of unnumbered ages. 
For years this strength may seem a senseless waste 
of material and labor. The queenly ship may 
speed as over charmed seas, and her conflicts with 
the ocean may be as mere tournaments for the dis- 
play of her beautiful proportions and her gallant 
bearing. But there will come a day when she shall 
seem as powerless in the contest as a child's toy- 
boat launched on the Atlantic, — when the unseen 
fingers of eddying winds shall clutch and wrench 
every bolt and pry at every seam, — when those 
giant ribs shall quake and quiver, those stout 
planks bend and grind ; and if she outride the 
storm, and keep afloat to bring home the ghastly 
scars of her life-struggle, it will be due to the 
strength, needless till then, but wisely hoarded by 
the builder for the hour of peril. 

My young friends, you, consciously or uncon- 
sciously, are building characters for yourselves, and 
it behooves you to build, not only for your present 
need, but for exigencies that are inevitable with 



286 PREPARATION FOR THE FUTURE. 



added years, or for that solemn exigency of early 
death, which alone can supersede more arduous 
duties, severer temptations, heavier sorrows than 
you have }*et experienced or imagined. Let us 
look together at some of these exigencies. 

In the first place, more arduous duty than has 
yet devolved upon you awaits your maturer years. 
In your youth, you have no weighty trusts un- 
shared ; your obligations are for the most part 
defined for you by the authority that imposes them ; 
you are under watchful, and generally judicious, 
guardianship ; and the approval that you most 
desire attends and rewards your right-doing. But 
when you shall have entered on active life, there 
will be laid upon you heavy trusts and responsi- 
bilities which you must bear alone. You will be 
called upon for strenuous, continuous, self-denying 
efforts, with no earthly recompense in view, — 
sometimes, for absolutely heroic virtue, in conflict 
with difficulty, opposition, and discouragement. 
You will be without human restraint or guardian- 
ship. Your duty may often run counter to sur- 
rounding opinion and habit. Your motives may be 
misunderstood or called in question by those whose 
esteem you most desire. You may have to walk 
alone, with the highest earthly bribes offered for 
the sacrifice of your integrity, or the surrender of 
your own sense of right. Often, too, you will have 



PREPARATION FOR THE FUTURE. 287 



to take your part with no space for deliberation, 
with no time to fill your lamps anew. Meanwhile, 
a single false decision will be a fatal precedent 
for others ; a single wrong step will be followed by 
successive steps in the same direction ; a single 
surrender of principle is only too likely to be a life- 
long surrender: for our own example is that which, 
above all others, we are the most prone to follow. 

Now what you need for this career is not merely 
right purposes, — who is without them? Their 
wrecks pave the path of ruin and of death. You 
need strength to keep these purposes unbroken. 
What you shall become and be will depend on the 
principles which you carry with you from these 
your young days, — on the oil in your vessels with 
your lamps, — on the inward might which you 
store and hoard for future use. 

You will want, above all, a profound reverence 
for the right, — a settled conviction that right and 
wrong are not questions of meridian, or latitude, 
or surroundings, but inherent, inalienable quali- 
ties of actions, so that Omnipotence itself could 
not make the right wrong, or the wrong right. 
You want not merely to believe, but to feel, that 
the moral law is no less immutable than the laws 
of nature, — that in no individual instance can you 
tamper with it or set it aside, but to your loss and 
peril. 



288 PREPARATION FOR THE FUTURE. 



You want this, indeed; but you want more. 
With this you will see the right, and feel your 
obligation to embody it in conduct ; but you may 
see the right, yet pursue the wrong from the mere 
craving for society and sympathy. It is intensely 
hard to stand alone in arduous duty ; you will, 
therefore, need to say with Jesus, " Yet I am not 
alone, for the Father is with me." I know of no 
tonic except the felt presence of the Infinite 
Father, which can so nerve the will, so intensify 
the active powers, so energize the whole moral 
nature, as to render right-doing inevitable. With 
this you can face opposition, quell discourage- 
ment, defy transient disesteem and loss, and, 
were there need, look even death in the face. 
Of ourselves pitifully weak, we thus, for the 
work in hand, become partakers of omnipotence ; 
for all things are possible to him the fountain of 
whose strength is fed from the river before the 
throne of God. Well said the apostles, " Show 
us the Father, and it suffice th us ; " and they saw 
the Father where we in faith may see him, in 
those traits of blended majesty, beauty, and love, 
in which Jesus — the Emmanuel, the God with us 
— presents to our view all of the Divine that man 
can know. With him at your side you would feel 
strong. Eemember that it is the Sovereign Love 
from which his life-flame was kindled that is ever 



PREPARATION FOR TEE FUTURE. 289 



with you, — a love of which a mother's fondness 
is too faint a type, — a love which you cannot take 
into your hearts, as it flows into you from the 
heart that bled for you on Calvary, and remain 
inert or inadequate as to any call of duty. 
" Strong in the Lord, and in the power of his 
might," you can find no duty too arduous, no 
height of excellence beyond your reach. 

Not only more arduous duties, intenser tempta- 
tions than you have yet encountered are in re- 
serve for you. I do not underrate the temptations 
of early youth; and it is no small ground for 
gratitude that so many are able to resist them, and 
that in our society of young men there is a preva- 
lent public opinion on the side of good* morals, 
and a general detestation of all the grosser forms 
of vice. It is a priceless blessing for you, my 
young friends, and of the happiest omen for your 
future, if- you have hitherto been unscathed by "the 
pestilence that walketh in darkness and the de- 
struction that waste th at noonday." All honor be 
given to the right feeling and pure sentiment 
which have preserved you thus far. Yet I cannot 
forget that, with your severe temptations, you 
have shelter and support from virtuous home- 
influences, many of you, I trust, from the example 
and influence of devout parents and truly Chris- 
tian homes. But the time is approaching, when 
13 s 



290 PREPARATION FOR THE FUTURE. 



these restraining and hallowing forces will be with- 
drawn, and you must breast temptation, perhaps 
alone, perhaps in an atmosphere overcharged with 
contagious depravity, among corrupt examples, 
among those whose maxims and habits are only 
the more ensnaring, because they hide the gross- 
ness of degrading vice beneath the mask of re- 
finement, gentility, and good fellowship. 

Then, too, the appetites and passions, unless 
under the control of the highest principle, gain 
strength with the early years of manhood, and are 
most vigorous in the prime of its maturity, so that 
there are not a few instances in which those whose 
lives have for years been void of reproach, suc- 
cumb, midway in their course, in some moment of 
intense temptation, and are thenceforward among 
those for whom there seems to be no hope of a 
better resurrection. These passions and appetites, 
also, gain a vast accession of strength by indul- 
gence, and if yielded to in but a single instance, 
they too often assume the mastery, and make 
their subject their slave ; for in this regard one's 
own example is pre-eminently dangerous, and 
the old superstition that he who gave the arch- 
fiend but a single drop of his blood became 
his thrall for ever, is not a whit too strong to 
symbolize the results of perpetual experience and 
observation. 



PREPARATION FOR TEE FUTURE. 291 

For these perils which you must encounter you 
need not merely right feeling, but fixed principle, 
the fear and love of God, the power of religious 
faith, the heart-bonds which make you in spirit a 
child of the Father in heaven. With these re- 
sources you are safe. With this hoarded strength 
you are irresistibly strong. With this holy oil 
your lamp will burn clear and bright, even in the 
foulest atmosphere. Without this you may resist 
to a certain point, but are liable at any moment to 
•have the snare sprung upon you, and your light 
quenched in darkness. 

From the dim traditions of an antiquity of 
which the Hebrew Scriptures are the only record, 
has come down to us the example of a son — his 
father's special favorite — sold into foreign slav- 
ery, in a land of idolaters, and there tempted to 
infamous guilt, with the alternative of a dungeon, 
and perhaps death, who yet could say, " How 
can I do this great wickedness, and sin against 
God?" In these words is a talisman that never 
yet has failed. The guilty purpose is dispelled, 
the allurements of sin are neutralized, by the 
thought of the present God. I do not believe that 
a man ever succumbed to temptation, while he said 
in his heart, " God is here." We fall into sin only 
by living without God. 

Do you say, I cannot think of God all the time ? 



292 PREPARATION FOR THE FUTURE. 



I answer, In one sense you cannot ; yet in another, 
you can. You cannot at every moment frame the 
thought of God to your distinct consciousness ; 
yet there may be a latent consciousness of his 
presence that need never leave you. See that 
little child, at his mother's side, engrossed in his 
picture-book or his toys. He surely is not think- 
ing of his mother. Yet, does a stranger enter ? 
He seeks her arms. Or does she rise to leave the 
room ? At once disturbed and uneasy, he follows 
her, or stays impatient for her return, thus show-* 
ing that, deep beneath his occupation for the 
moment, lay the restful, gladdening thought of 
her protecting, loving presence, ready at any 
instant to find shape and voice. Such is the con- 
sciousness of the present God which we may 
carry with us in our busiest hours, — real and in- 
separable when latent, distinct and imperative in 
every moment of need, our sufficient safeguard 
and refuge in every peril. That you may be thus 
armed, you should establish and never intermit 
special seasons of direct communion with God. 
There is untold power in the morning and the 
evening prayer, when made the habit of the life. 
More and more do they spread their influence 
through the day, till they meet and embrace mid- 
way, — the fragrance of the morning worship 
lingering till noonday, the incense of the even- 



PREPARATION FOR THE FUTURE. 293 



ing sacrifice beginning to rise when the shadows 
turn. 

Equally is there need of reserved power, treas- 
ured wealth of principle, faith, and hope, for the 
severe trials and heavy griefs which mast come 
upon you, if your earthly lives be prolonged. 
Some of you have had no experiences of this 
class ; and for those of you who have had them, 
the elasticity and the crowded excitements of 
youth have made the sorrow, if poignant, yet 
intermittent and brief. You have no homes of 
your own for death to lay waste. You have not 
seen the blighting of hopes identified with every 
earthly prospect. You have not known the deso- 
lation that attends many of the most frequent 
forms of human sorrow. But in the future all or 
most of you will have such experiences in the 
death of those nearest to your hearts, or in those 
severer chronic, often hidden, griefs for which 
death is the only remedy. Under these burdens, 
on these darkened passages, you can have little or 
no companionship, save of the partners of your 
grief, — you must tread the wine-press alone, — 
alone, unless your Saviour be with you ; unless he 
who has felt every form of human sorrow breathe 
into you his spirit of trust and resignation ; unless 
he who in his own person transformed the insignia 
of death into emblems of the life beyond life, 



294 PREPARATION FOR THE FUTURE. 



strew over the graves of those dear to you the 
perennial spring-flowers that bloom only around 
his broken sepulchre. But there is a blessed 
reality in his felt sympathy, in his loving com- 
panionship, in the hope full of immortality which 
he inspires. Oh how often have I witnessed in 
those bereaved at every point, in the depth of 
penury, weighed down by long infirmity, without 
earthly help or hope, the tokens of a happiness, 
compared with which mirth and gayety seemed 
vapid ! Often in going from one of these (so- 
called) homes of sorrow to visit a household that 
had known no grief, I have felt a sudden depres- 
sion of spirit, an inward chill, as when one passes 
from a brilliantly lighted room into a starless 
night ; for from the soul where faith is strong and 
hope is clear there glows a pure and genial radi- 
ance, — " the glory of God doth lighten it, and 
the Lamb is the light thereof." 

But none of the experiences that I have named 
may be yours. From many an early grave, from 
many a young and vigorous frame laid low in 
unwarned death, comes the voice, " Be ye also 
ready." For this contingency need you not oil 
in your vessels with your lamps, ; — an assured 
faith that your sins are forgiven, your souls ac- 
cepted .with God? Not long ago, one of the 
oldest graduates of our college, a man whose life 



PREP ABA TION FOB TEE FUTURE. 295 

has been singularly pure, true, faithful, generous 
from youth to age ; who has been too, though 
religious, not a religious dogmatist, but broadly 
liberal in his speculations as a Christian scholar, 
with the largest freedom in Christ, not from him ; 
a man who, with unimpaired mental vision and 
power, yet knows that he is close upon the outer- 
most verge of life, — said (and his words were 
written down as they fell from his lips), "I cannot 
understand how any thoughtful man, reviewing his 
life, and searching his heart in the full conscious- 
ness that he is soon to appear in the presence of 
an infinitely holy God, to whom he is to give a 
strict account of every act and secret thought, can 
help feeling the need of a Redeemer. For my- 
self, I must say that I can find no ground of 
comfort or hope, apart from my faith in the 
redemption of the world through a suffering 
Saviour.- Through him alone it is that I dare 
to feel a trembling, yet confident assurance of 
being received into a perfectly pure and blissful 
heaven." 

It is easy, while death seems remote from us, to 
magnify our claims, and to keep our infirmities 
and our ill desert out of mind. But when you 
and I shall be consciously near the last earthly 
hour, I know that we shall not feel adequate in 
our own strength to ford the death-river, and in 



296 PREPARATION FOR THE FUTURE. 



the pride of our own merit to demand admittance 
at the golden gate. It will then be of unspeak- 
able worth to us to have heard, before the shadow 
of death closes over us, the voice of him who has 
power on earth to forgive sin, to have felt the 
reconciling ministry of his cross, and the might 
of his redeeming love. 

Thus, living or dying, you need preparation for 
the inevitable future, oil in your vessels with your 
lamps ; in other words, Christian piety, by which I 
mean the consecration of the will and the affec- 
tions to your God and your Saviour. This may be 
yours. On God's part every thing has been done, 
and the attitude of his Spirit toward each one of 
you is expressed in those words from the vision of 
the beloved disciple, 44 Behold, I stand at the door, 
and knock." All that remains for you is told in 
our Lord's parable, in which the son came to him- 
self, and said, " I will arise and go to my Father." 
You cannot come to yourselves ; you cannot see 
what you are, what you must encounter, what you 
will inevitably need, without saying with your 
whole soul, " Saviour, I must, I will be thine. 
Take me, lead me, shield me, redeem me from sin, 
deliver me from evil. Let me in thy light walk 
safely and surely while I stay here ; and when I 
wake immortal from the grave, let me be still with 
thee." 



PREPARATION FOR THE FUTURE. 297 



My young friends, there is no spectacle so glad- 
dening to good men, I can hardly imagine one that 
gives such joy in heaven, as the consecration of 
youth to God. Beautiful and honorable is piety 
when it encircles the hoary head with its crown of 
glory, and blends the dawn of the unending day 
with the waning lustre of the earthly life. Rich 
and glorious is it when it lights up the midway 
career of active duty, hallows the home and the 
busy walk, and makes even the house of merchan- 
dise the Father's house. But if piety assumes an 
aspect more venerable than any other, it is when 
it glows in the dew of youth, — when" it clothes 
with its strength the uncrippled powers, and pours 
its fervor through the undimmed affections of him 
who hears the Master's early call, and enters life 
under the Good Shepherd's guidance. I love to 
trace the onward steps of such a youth. I watch 
him in -prosperity, and see his peace thanksgiv- 
ing, and his gladness praise. I mark his demeanor 
in his early disappointments and griefs, and per- 
ceive that there still remains with him the good 
part, the angels' portion. I see light for him in 
darkness ; in earthly desolation there are for him 
heavenly communings, sympathies from before the 
throne of God. Whatever clouds may gather 
about his path, • yea, though he walk through 
13* 



298 PREPARATION FOR THE FUTURE. 



the valley of the shadow of death, he feels and 
fears no evil. 

" As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form, 
Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm, 
Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread, 
Eternal sunshine settles on its head." 



THE CREATOR. 



299 



XXIV. 

THE CREATOR. 

"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." — Genesis i. 1. 

"DELIEVING, as I do, that religious truth de- 
pends not for its validity on this or that 
scientific theory, I do not like to make Religion a 
party in scientific controversies ; for, while she is 
invulnerable in her legitimate conflicts, she re- 
ceives no wounds so ghastly and so hard to heal as 
when she is drawn into strife beyond her own do- 
main. Science, however, sometimes breaks bounds 
as well as Religion. There have been, as you 
know, recent instances in which the fundamental 
belief in God as the Creator of the heaven and the 
earth has been impugned, or set aside as super- 
fluous, and the existence of the universe and of 
organized being ascribed to material causes alone. 
My present design is to show you that the evolu- 
tion-theory, if admitted in full, is not of itself suffi- 
cient to account for things as they are. It may 
define the mode of creation ; but it cannot super- 
sede the Creator. Though I am not its disciple, 



300 



THE CREATOR. 



I have no hostility to it. Whatever be its fate, 
whether it shall or shall not ultimately take its 
place among established scientific verities, it has 
corrected and elevated the conceptions of thinking 
men and women as to the origin of the universe. 
The ideas of specific creation used to be almost as 
mechanical as those associated with any human 
artificer and his works. Plants, animals, and man 
were supposed to have been made and started into 
being very much as the figures in a puppet-show 
might be manufactured and put in action. But 
now, enlightened theologians, no less than philoso- 
phe«s, conceive of a progressive creation rather 
than of successive acts of creation ; of types and 
races of organized being at every stage contingent 
on and modified by the conditions of soil and atmos- 
phere ; in fine, of development, though not in a 
single line, and not without the controlling purpose 
of an all-wise and all-mighty Creator. 

Whatever our theory, there must have been a 
beginning. Even if a past eternity be claimed for 
brute matter, there must have been a time when it 
began to take shape. The present planetary and 
stellar motions cannot always have been ; else they 
would not now be what they are. In our own 
planet, geology carries us back, through ages which 
our arithmetic cannot count or span, to an era when 
no foot of beast trod the reeking morass, no fin 



TEE CREATOR. 301 



ploughed the turbid chaos, no wing floated in the 
murky expanse swept by boiling mud-torrents; 
when there was neither soil to give a plant root, 
nor sunlight to paint its petals; when the earth 
was, like much of the philosophy that seeks to give 
account of it, without form and void, and darkness 
was upon the face of the abyss. 

We are told, on the best scientific authority, that 
the earth was, for unnumbered aeons, at a tempera- 
ture very far exceeding the highest at which the 
germs of organic life can exist, ■ — a temperature 
which, were it to supervene now, would resolve all 
existing organisms into inorganic atoms. As the 
planet cooled, if there be no God, life must have 
started spontaneously from brute, inorganic matter. 
There are but two ways in which this could have 
taken place, — development and efficient causation. 
Development occurs when the succeeding forma- 
tion exists in embryo in the preceding, as the 
plant in the seed, the bird in the egg, the butterfly 
in the caterpillar. But at this epoch, there being 
no existing germs, there was nothing to develop, 
or to be developed from. 

Causation presents equal difficulty. A cause 
includes its effect, that is, there must be in the 
cause some reason why it should produce the 
specific effect ascribed to it rather than any other. 
Now, not only is there no authentic instance 



302 



THE CREATOR. 



within the knowledge of man in which life has 
sprung spontaneously from inorganic matter ; 
but inorganic matter cannot even nourish or 
sustain life. Not only animals, but plants derive 
the elements on which they feed from organized 
matter, and cannot be similarly fed by the very 
same elements supplied in forms that never pos- 
sessed organic life. It is the peculiarity of life 
that it perpetuates itself by its own resources, the 
living feeding on the dead ; and it has from inor- 
ganic matter nothing but mechanical support and 
shelter, depth for its roots, space for its growth, 
scope for its locomotion. How then can inor- 
ganic matter be the cause of that organic life 
which it is utterly powerless to sustain or re- 
new? 

Moreover, if there be no God, inorganic matter 
— earths, gases, and water — must be the cause, 
not of organic life alone, but of sensation, instinct, 
reflection, reason, emotion, love, piety. If so, 
what relation is there, or can there ever have 
been, between the cause and the effect? Cer- 
tainly, not that between the container and the 
contained. Before life began upon the earth, it is 
inconceivable that even an omniscient philosopher 
from an older planet, capable of the most minute 
and deep-probing analysis, could have discovered 
in the elements then before him aught of which — 



THE CREATOR. 



303 



though by the transformations of unnumbered 
ages — a Homer, a Raphael, a Newton could have 
been constructed. Yet the effect cannot transcend 
the cause. If mind be mere brain and tissue, 
in the matter which produced it there must have 
resided the latent power of all that mind has be- 
come and shall become. 

To pass from organic life to the consideration 
of the universe as a whole, it is admitted on all 
hands that nature is now governed by law, — that 
its sequences are all orderly. If there be not a 
Sovereign Mind, law must have' been the result of 
a series of happy chances. Atoms floated about in 
space, solitary and aimless, until certain atoms hap- 
pened so to impinge upon one another as to form 
the first living and self-propagating organic cell. 
But whence came the life of that cell? Whence 
its capacity of multiplying and transmitting life? 
Moreover, had that cell, or any number of the 
cells derived from it, the power to arrest the mad 
whirl of the primitive atoms, and to transmute the 
chaos into a cosmos? There were myriads of 
chances to one against the formation of the first 
cell ; the chances against the formation of the 
second and of every succeeding cell were still 
more numerous ; and you must belt the solar sys- 
tem with figures, to represent the chances against 
the completed system, the established supremacy of 



304 



THE CUE ATOM . 



law. Were half a dozen dice to show the same 
face in two consecutive throws, we should pro- 
nounce them all loaded. There must have been 
myriads upon myriads of throws with loaded dice 
to bring these chaotic world-forces into order. 

Law implies mind, will, co-ordinating intelli- 
gence and power. If we suppose a supreme 
creative Intelligence, there is no portion of the 
structure and administration of the universe that 
is left unexplained, and there is no other hypoth- 
esis that solves the problem. This solution is 
demanded no less by the theory of evolution than 
by that of specific creation. If the primeval 
monads, by the law of their nature, possessed the 
power of evolving all the existing types of life, 
sensation, thought, feeling, aspiration, that law 
must have been imposed upon them by an intel- 
ligent Lawgiver. If the speck of mould, which 
may have been one of man's far-off progenitors, 
had in it that which would of its own nature 
grow into reason, will, virtue, into all that man is 
or ever can be, this must have been by the action 
of intelligence, purpose, and power, not by un- 
knowing and irresponsible chance. 

There are yet other reasons which constrain us 
to believe in an intelligent Creator. I lay no 
stress on the mere fact of the mutual adaptation 
and harmony that prevail throughout the uni- 



THE CREATOR. 



305 



verse ; for spontaneous developments from a kin- 
dred source would naturally bear to one another 
relations that would indicate their belonging to 
the same system. If all portions of the uni- 
verse — inorganic, organized and living — are 
fitted, each to each and each to all, as every 
bolt, screw, rod, and pivot of a steam-engine is 
fitted to every other ; or if some parts are the 
necessary products of others, as the finished cloth 
is the product of the combined action of the spin- 
dle, loom, and dyeing vat upon wool, — this might 
be accounted for — at least as easily as the be- 
ginning to be — on the theory of spontaneous 
development. But these analogies very imper- 
fectly represent things as they are. There are, 
within the great whole, numerous sub-systems, 
sets of machinery (if I may continue the figure 
already employed), microcosms, either independent 
of one another, or acting on one another gener- 
ally, not specifically; and these separate sub- 
systems, and all the parts of each, are adapted to 
one another, not as parts and parts of a machine, 
nor as a machine and its products ; but as any 
number of clocks of different workmanship that 
should keep time together, or as musical instru- 
ments of every variety of material, compass, and 
tone, that should preserve harmony in an orches- 
tra, — an adaptation, not of the ball-and-socket 

T 



806 



THE ORE A TOR. 



order, but of what I might term independent 
parallelism. 

• A single instance may suffioe to illustrate my 
meaning. The eye is adapted to light. But the 
eye cannot be the product of light. Light could 
not, though acting upon an interminable series of 
generations, bore the orifice in the forehead, in an 
analogous position with reference to the brain in 
every creature, round the pupil, stretch the retina, 
secrete the humors, develop the eyelid and the 
lash ; nor, unless under the ordering of a higher 
Intelligence, could there be any action of the crea- 
tures themselves with reference to light. There 
was a time, according to the theory, when the 
creatures were all eyeless. In that condition there 
could have been no knowledge of light, no yearn- 
ing and striving for it, no instinctive effort to 
realize experiences of which there could have 
been no possible presage or intimation. It hardly 
needs to be said that, on the other hand, the 
development of the organ in the living being 
could not have had the remotest agency in the 
production of light. There is manifestly between 
light and the eye no more relation of part and 
part than between the eye and a printed book, no 
more relation of cause and effect than between the 
eye and the opera-glass. Physically, light and 
the eye belong to different systems, to different 



THE CREATOR. 



307 



sequences of cause and effect ; and yet their 
mutual adaptation is as perfect as if light were 
a conscious artificer, and had created the eye ex- 
pressly as its own recipient and beneficiary. 

Now adaptations of this class, adaptations with- 
out causation or causal connection, grow continu- 
ally on our investigation, and it is one of the chief 
labors of modern science to discover and verify 
them. They imply a personal Intelligence. These 
multiform, yet perfectly accordant harmonies, nu- 
merous beyond thought, with never a discordant 
note, cannot have been evolved by chance, by the 
fortuitous concourse of atoms, by automatic forces 
of nature, by law without a law-giver, by a (so- 
called) God who awoke not to self-consciousness 
till the last, the master chord was stretched and 
strung. They can have been struck only by a 
living, conscious, omniscient, and all-mighty Crea- 
tor ; and the ceaseless burden of their melody, the 
sound that goes out through all the earth, the 
anthem-note that vibrates through the universe, 
is, " The Lord God Omnipotent reigneth." 

Not only are these mutual adaptations to be 
traced between different sub-systems in the system 
of universal nature, — there are also numerous 
tokens of specific design. The argument from 
design has been so loosely and feebly employed as 
to have won a bad name which it does not merit. 



308 



TEE CREATOR. 



Mere seeming fitness does not prove design ; for 
beings and objects spontaneously placed in juxta- 
position must either have become fitted to one an- 
other, or have perished. Nor yet does use indicate 
design ; for it is always conceivable that the use 
may have grown out of the existence of the object 
used, instead of being the antecedent reason, the 
final cause, for its existence. But there are cases 
in which an undoubted and essential end is at- 
tained by means so numerous, so harmonious, so 
appropriate, so peculiar, as to indicate express con- 
trivance, and to be inexplicable on any other hy- 
pothesis. Thus, in the family of the pitcher-plants, 
which literally need and crave animal food, each 
species has not a simple, but an elaborate apparatus 
for taking its prey. In one species, for instance, 
there is a secretion of a saccharine fluid, which not 
only rests in the bowl of the hollow leaf or petiole, 
but is exuded in tiny drops on the outer surface of 
the pitcher, along which the insect is beguiled into 
the interior, where he encounters minute bristles 
pointing inward, from which he cannot disengage 
himself. Meanwhile, the liquid which attracts him, 
serves as a narcotic, and is found on experiment to 
have a chemical action analogous to that of the 
gastric juice in animals. Thus by the easiest pos- 
sible mode of death there is a slight depletion of 
the superabundant insect-life, to nourish a life, of 



THE CREATOR. 



309 



which the most beautiful and noteworthy species 
js found on mountains in California, whose arid 
soil under a rainless summer sky would fail to 
yield the necessary elements for a vegetation like 
that of the plains below. How any freak of spon- 
taneous evolution could have beguiled into those 
mountain-regions a branch of a family most of 
whose members prefer bogs and meadows, and 
enabled it to organize there in its stress of need so 
efficient a commissariat, is a problem which we 
cannot begin to solve. We, indeed, know not the 
purposes which the family of pitcher-plants may 
serve in the economy of creation. Perhaps it 
serves no purpose except to awaken wonder and 
admiration. Yet there are so many features in its 
construction that cannot by any possibility have 
been produced either by the plant's appetency for 
insects or by their flocking to the Circsean cup, as 
to carry our thoughts of necessity to a designing 
Mind, whose purposes we may not fathom, but 
whose methods alone suffice to indicate purpose 
and an unbounded fertility of resource for its real- 
ization. 

This same argument may be legitimately ex- 
tended to the structures formed by various ani- 
mals ; the eagle's and the swallow's nest, the 
beaver's dam, the cell of the bee, and unnumbered 
curious types of bird and insect architecture. 



310 



THE CREATOR. 



When we find in such structures the practical 
solution of mathematical problems which it took 
man some thousands of years to solve ; when we 
see in the works of these builders a surer and safer 
wisdom than human architects have ever reached ; 
and when we consider that, according to the evolu- 
tion-theory, man has passed through the forms of 
not a few of these sagacious animals, yet, if he has 
retained " the mark of the beast " (as we are told 
he has), has lost their skill, — we find it impossi- 
ble to imagine that such artistical capacity resides 
where there seems to be neither reasoning, consec- 
utive thought, nor even clear self-consciousness. 
We cannot believe this multiform carpentry of 
beast, bird, and insect to be mere development, 
else it would have developed into something truer 
and better of its kind in man. It must of neces- 
sity be the work of mind, and if so, of the Mind 
that works equally through the limbs and organs 
of the living animal, and the rootlets and leaves of 
the Irving' flower. 

I add but one more argument. Beauty in the 
universe is an infallible token of a personal Crea- 
tor. If creation be evolution, and nothing more, 
there would be no development not generated by 
necessity, subservient to use, and subsidiary to the 
perfection of the several species of organized being. 
The development of the sense of beauty in man 



THE CREATOR. 311 

would account only for his embodiment of the 
beautiful in his own creations, not for the out- 
raying of it in portions of the universe which 
neither act on him nor are acted on by him. Yet 
in regions where man is only a casual wayfarer, in 
fields of space of winch he is only a very far-off 
spectator, in spots which, but for his overpowering 
appetency for beauty, he would lack the courage 
and enterprise to penetrate, are seen forms and 
hues of intense and transcendent loveliness, — 
scenes and objects which have no use whatever 
except to satisfy the aesthetic nature, — which are 
entirely out of any conceivable line of develop- 
ment, can have been educed by no necessity, and 
can have no possible issue other than the admiring 
and adoring thoughts which they awaken. 

I want to lay stress on this argument. The 
theory of specific creation has been sneeringly 
termed the carpenter-theory, and may in its more 
literal forms have given some ground for the cavil ; 
but the evolution-theory, when held without faith 
in God, much better deserves the name, though its 
carpenter be impersonal. Plain joiner- work is all 
that it can possibly do, and that only under the 
spur of need, — the work to be preserved only 
because of its close fitness to the need. Grandeur, 
beauty, whatever appeals to the sentiments, the 
imagination, the emotional nature, must lie entirely 



312 



THE CREATOR. 



out of the scope of spontaneous evolution; for 
there is nothing on the earth from which it can be 
evolved, except the soul of man, and we know that 
it existed ages upon ages before man began to be. 

What is the result of our discussion ? Not, by 
any means, the disproval of evolution, as God's 
method of creation. This theory must stand or 
fall on scientific grounds alone. But we have seen 
that evolution without God cannot account for 
things as they are, — that there is a Supreme and 
Almighty Creator, without whose formative im- 
press creation could not have taken place, and of 
whose wisdom, goodness, beauty-breathing, joy- 
giving Spirit we have manifold and numberless 
tokens, — the vestiges of God in nature. 



THE SPIRIT IN MAN. 



313 



XXV. 



THE SPIRIT IN MAN. 



" There is a spirit in man" — Job xxxii. 8. 



0 say religionists of almost every type. So, 



with few dissentients, says the unanimous 
voice of the Christian church. We can, indeed, 
define spirit only by negations ; but the negations 
are positive, inasmuch as it is the limitations and 
imperfections of matter that they deny. Spirit, 
though it uses material organs and implements, is 
distinct from them, their owner and master ; it can 
do many things without their aid ; it may survive 
its dependence upon them ; and were they all 
swept out of being, it might still remain in being, 
— its life unmarred by " the wrecks of matter and 
the crush of worlds." 

Modern science derives man's parentage from 
what we have been accustomed to call the lower 
orders of beings. I confess a strong preference for 
the genealogy whose two concluding links are, 
" Which was the son of Adam, which was the son 
of God." But so far as mere physical lineage is 




14 



314 



THE SPIRIT IN MAN. 



concerned, the question belongs to scientists rather 
than to theologians. Whatever man's origin may 
have been, there can be no doubt that he possesses 
many physical characteristics in common with 
the higher animals, and some in common with all, 
and on any theory we should expect to find this 
the case ; for man has the same material condi- 
tions, surroundings, and necessities with his hum- 
bler fellow-beings. 

But is there in man an immaterial, supra-mate- 
rial consciousness, in which he differs from the 
brutes, not in degree alone, but in kind, — some- 
thing which is not their instinct refined and ex- 
alted, but into which instinct could never grow, — 
occupying a range of thought, knowledge, and 
aspiration which to the brute is and ever will be 
an unexplored region ? This question we will now 
attempt to answer. 

I shall say nothing of consciousness, of memory, 
of sensation and the knowledge of its objects ; for 
these are generally regarded as belonging to the 
brutes, though there are some symptoms, in scien- 
tific circles, of the revival of the hypothesis of 
Descartes, that the life of the brute is not in any 
degree self-conscious, but purely vegetative and 
automatic. 

The first difference between man and the brutes 
which arrests our attention is man's power of prog- 



THE SPIRIT IN MAN. 



315 



ress, as manifested both individually and collec- 
tively. Other animals either are born with an 
entire fitness for their functions and their destiny, 
or in a very brief period attain that fitness and 
never transcend it. The swallow builds as good a 
nest the first spring of his life as he will ever build. 
"Whatever the animal acquires of knowledge or 
skill grows from the material conditions under 
which he lives. Given his antecedents and sur- 
roundings, you can describe his orbit, and you 
know that he will never pass a hair's-breadth be- 
yond it. But man's antecedents and surroundings 
do not furnish the first elements for calculating 
his orbit, which may intersect the outermost circle^ 
of the material system to which he belongs, and 
stretch on into the unmapped region beyond, as 
the comet wings its flight into depths of space re- 
moter than the planet's round. 

Man, also, alone of all animals, grows collec- 
tively, and from generation to generation. Other 
animals have repeated the life of their ancestors 
for the entire period for which man has known 
them, with no change except the very limited 
modification of instinctive habitudes produced by 
man, in purely physical methods, by arranging ex- 
ternal conditions with reference to the desired end, 
— conditions which must be maintained with sedu- 
lous care, else the improved race reverts to the 



316 



THE SPIRIT IN MAN. 



common level of its kind. Bnt each generation of 
men mounts on the shoulders of that which pre- 
ceded it. Facts are epitomized into principles ; 
knowledge is condensed into general truths ; and 
the acquisitions of a thousand years are carried by 
the child from the primary school. 

There is no physical peculiarity of man that can 
account for this power of progress. Is it ascribed 
to speech ? Speech, as a medium for the trans- 
mission of knowledge, thought, and feeling, is not 
a physical instrumentality, but one appertaining to 
that in man the like of which exists nowhere else 
upon the earth. Had not man the power of artic- 
ulation, with his mental capacity the same as now, 
he would make the modulation of his roar, bark, or 
howl significant of the entire gamut of sensibility, 
and even of abstract thought ; or he would shape 
a visible language, and put it into legible writing. 
The mental ability to talk would somehow create 
language, whether there were or were not organs 
of speech ; while birds that can articulate as dis- 
tinctly and as volubly as man, cannot make their 
language a medium for the mutual communication 
of thought or sentiment. A community of trained 
parrots, if transported beyond the reach of man, 
would lose what words they knew in the second 
generation ; a community of civilized dumb men 
and women would in the second generation possess 



THE SPIRIT IN MAN 



317 



a sign-language amply adequate to their needs, 
and would have begun to create a permanent lit- 
erature. 

Nor can the human hand account for man's 
progress. The hand, indeed, in range and versa- 
tility of movement, power, and use, surpasses every 
other organ of animal structure and every instru- 
ment of man's device ; but we have among our 
supposed kindred on the monkey-side some species 
of apes whose hands seem to lack no physical 
capacity or adaptation that belongs to the human 
hand, }^et which are as unprogressive as the mole 
or the snail. 

Man's power of progress is due to causes wholly 
unconnected with his physical development and 
with the possibilities of material consciousness. 
We have no proof that other animals have any 
knowledge, except that which comes to them im- 
mediately ' through the senses. They evince no 
apprehension of principles, of multitudinous, com- 
prehensive facts, of general truths. They show 
merely an accurate knowledge of material facts and 
phenomena, which is the utmost that can be ac- 
counted for on any theory of material conscious- 
ness. Man's superiority consists in his capacity for 
supersensual ideas, and these cannot be elaborated 
by any conceivable material apparatus. The senses 
convey facts, not truths ; and if sensation is the sole 



318 



THE SPIRIT IN MAN. 



source of knowledge, and a material sensorium the 
sole receptacle and depository of knowledge, facts 
are all that can be known. The senses can take 
no cognizance of a class or a law, — of the essential 
resemblances which may group together objects or 
phenomena that on a superficial view present only 
unlikeness. A class or a law is not an object of 
sensation. It is an idea which has no counterpart 
in actual existence, and therefore cannot be per- 
ceived by the organs of sense, or recognized by a 
merely material consciousness. Yet man with his 
mental vision sees a class or a law as distinctly as 
the eye discerns an individual object ; and, still 
farther, by higher stages of abstraction and gen- 
eralization, he resolves clusters of classes into more 
comprehensive classes, fascicles of laws into single 
laws of a broader scope, till in every department 
he seizes upon some one unifying principle, under 
which all the classes may be grouped, or to which 
all the laws may be referred. He then from these 
principles deduces inferences, which the senses 
could never have discovered, and which are veri- 
fied only by that minute observation and analysis 
in which the senses, if concerned in any degree, 
bear but an inferior part. Nor is this all. Man 
attains a large part of what he knows and trans- 
mits by virtue of the imaginative faculty, which 
suggests questions, experiments, methods by which 



THE SPIRIT IN MAN. 



319 



nature is, as it were, put to the torture for her 
secrets. This entire imaginative apparatus is su- 
persensual. Its processes are such as we cannot 
conceive of as being performed by the highest ani- 
mal instinct with which we are acquainted, how- 
ever greatly developed and enlarged in its present 
direction. In fine, man's superior capacity of 
knowledge, the elements of his progress, the truths 
which he perpetually elaborates, epitomizes, and 
transmits condensed and in a portable form, are all 
supersensual, — such as cannot be due to sensation 
however delicate, to perception however keen, to 
material consciousness however intensified and 
refined. 

I would, in the next place, maintain that the 
phenomena of man's moral nature cannot be de- 
rived from his material organization. Of all beings 
on the earth, man alone cognizes the distinction 
between right and wrong. Fidelity to a master 
is the nearest approach to virtue made by any 
other animal. This fidelity has no moral law or 
limit. The dog with equal complacency obeys a 
gentle or a savage master, guards his owner's or 
depredates on his neighbor's property. The noble 
St, Bernard dog, who by day delights all guests 
and comers with his high-bred courtesy, and seems 
to lack only erect form and speech to be the very 
mirror of gentlemanly bearing, will slink away at 



320 



THE SPIB1T IN MAN. 



nightfall to drink the blood of some stray sheep 
that he has spotted in a distant pasture. Yet it 
is of the very attributes that are common to us 
and the dog that the materialist constructs man's 
moral nature. Let us see how he builds. Let us 
pass in review the materialistic theory of morals. 

The first question in ethics, whether theoretical 
or practical, concerns the nature of moral distinc- 
tions, — the essential difference between the right 
and the wrong. According to the material phil- 
osophy, the child, and equally society in its infancy, 
learns to discriminate between acts which will 
give immediate pleasure and those which will cause 
immediate pain, and of necessity approves the for- 
mer and condemns the latter. More mature expe- 
rience and observation show that certain kinds of 
acts, at first pleasurable, produce ultimately more 
pain than pleasure, and that certain kinds of acts, 
painful or not pleasurable at the outset, produce 
ultimately more pleasure than pain. The former 
in process of time come to be regarded as vices, 
the latter as virtues. Still farther, at a higher 
stage of progress, man finds that his own capacity 
of procuring for himself pleasurable sensations is 
limited, often obstructed, often interfered with by 
others ; and it becomes. manifest that if the means 
of pleasure be put into a common stock, to which 
every man contributes to his full ability, and from 



THE SPIRIT IN MAN. 



321 



which every man may draw to his full need, each 
individual member of the community is sure of the 
largest possible dividend of pleasure, with the en- 
tire community for a guarantee. Hence the great- 
est good of the greatest number becomes the 
ultimate standard of right and criterion of virtue. 
It must be acknowledged that this is but a brutish 
type of virtue ; yet it is as high as materialism can 
reach. But your own consciousness tells you that 
its pleasure-yielding capacity is only an incident, 
not the essence of virtue. Every developed moral 
nature knows and feels that there are things in 
themselves fitting and right, that there are things 
in themselves unfitting and wrong, and that an 
eternity of happiness consequent upon it could not 
make a lie, or a fraud, or an act of cruelty virtuous. 
It was such human nature as there is in you and 
me that has embalmed in a tragedy which the 
world will never let die, Prometheus chained to 
eternal torture for his benefits to man ; and were 
the order of the universe such that a Prometheus 
could be thus doomed by despotic omnipotence, no 
stress of the divine will and no intensity of suffer- 
ing in threat or in experience could convert you 
or me, or any human being not prepossessed by 
a theory, from sympathy with the world's benefac- 
tor to reverence for its tyrant. 

We come next to the. materialistic theory of 
14* u 



322 



THE SPIRIT IN MAN. 



conscience, which, it is alleged, results solely from 
the observation of what is approved and what is 
disapproved, first, by parents, then by society and 
mankind at large. Conscience is thus made a 
superficial organ, and the growth of experience 
alone. It is enough to say that this theory fails to 
account equally for the tenderness, delicacy, and 
perspicacity of conscience frequently witnessed in 
very young children, and for those pioneer con- 
sciences, in advance — out of sight — of their com- 
munity or age, without whose clear and deep 
vision reform and moral progress would be im- 
possible. 

We are not surprised to find moral obligation 
almost ignored in the ethics of materialism. Bain 
makes external authority the sole ground of obli- 
gation, which he restricts to actions enforced by 
the sanction of punishment ; and John Stuart Mill 
regards the experience or apprehension of pain as 
alone capable of creating that sense of obligation, 
which is implied in the use of the word ought and 
kindred terms. If we are merely material beings, 
this is a sound theory, — the pains and penalties 
of violated law are our only possible motives to 
reluctant obedience ; and we cannot sufficiently 
admire the anticipation of the advanced philosophy 
of a later age in the realistic method of ethical 
instruction described in the book of Judges, when 



THE SPIRIT IN MAN 



323 



Gideon " took thorns of the wilderness and briars, 
and with them taught the men of Succoth." But 
our own consciousness negatives this view of obli- 
gation ; for can there be a stronger sense of obliga- 
tion than is felt by the truly religious man as to 
his duties to God ? — a sentiment, too, only the more 
constant and imperative when the element of fear 
is entirely eliminated. The sense of obligation is, 
also, often intense and tender in childhood, prior 
to any experience or knowledge of penalty. 

We thus see that materialism fails to account for 
the phenomena of man's moral nature. Still less 
can it account for his religious experiences and 
aspirations. It presents the manifest absurdity of 
a purely material being evolving from his senses 
and his physical structure a consciousness purely 
spiritual, — a felt communion and personal kindred 
with a Being not by any possibility cognizable by 
the organs of sense, not even cogitable by a merely 
material consciousness ; for the idea of spiritual 
existence is necessarily beyond the scope of a being 
who is himself unconscious of spiritual existence. 

We conclude, then, that natural science, even 
though its recent speculations as to man's material 
derivation were admitted as proved and established 
verities, cannot detach his hold upon the ancestral 
tree which traces his parentage from God, and of 
which, among the progeny of the second Adam, he, 



324 



THE SPIRIT IN MAN 



may become a living branch. "We may abandon to 
science the whole field of ethnology and physi- 
ology. No race can make ont an unbroken pedi- 
gree, nor can we deny that there are, as I have 
said, striking analogies, nay, even resemblances, 
between the higher orders of quadrupeds and the 
lower members of the human family. 

Yet from these most brute-like among men may 
be drawn the most cogent argument for the exist- 
ence and indestructibleness of the spiritual element 
in man. Sixty years ago the half-reasoning ele- 
phant or the tractable and troth-keeping dog might 
have seemed the peer, or more, of the unreasoning 
and conscienceless Hawaiian. From that very 
race, from that very generation, with which the 
nobler brutes might have scorned to claim kindred, 
have been developed the peers of saints and angels. 
Does not the susceptibility of a regeneration so 
radical, the capacity for all that is tender, beauti- 
ful, and glorious in the humanity of him whom we 
Christians revere as the Lord from heaven, inher- 
ent in even the lowest types of our race, of itself 
claim for man a nature which the brutes around 
him share as little in kind as in degree ? Has 
physical science a right to leave the " new man in 
Christ Jesus," which the most squalid savage may 
become, entirely unaccounted for in its theory of 
spontaneous development ? When the modern; 



TEE SPIRIT IN MAN. 



325 



Lucretianism can explain the phenomena con- 
nected with the Christian salvation and mani- 
fested in the lives of its conscious recipients, 
without the intervention of miracle, revelation, or 
Kedeemer, then, and not till then, can it demand 
our acceptance as a tenable theory of the entire 
realm of living being. 

Meanwhile, let not Religion pronounce dogmat- 
ically on questions of mere science. She has her 
region of spiritual being, interpreted by Christian 
consciousness, under the full rays of an illumining 
gospel. Law is undoubtedly supreme ; but there 
are spiritual laws interpenetrating the whole realm 
of material causes, — while not neutralizing or su- 
perseding them, their greater and more venerable 
complement. Let us accept the well-founded de- 
ductions of Science in her whole sphere ; but in 
those regions of truth to which she can only point 
with trembling finger and with awe-dimmed eye, 
let us rejoice that One has trodden our earth, who 
was found worthy to loose the seals and to open 
the book. 

Moreover, in Jesus Christ himself we find the 
strongest of all arguments against the theory of 
material evolution as applicable to the higher por- 
tions of man's nature. We have, as most of us 
undoubtedly believe, ample historical evidence 
that there existed upon the earth more than eigh- 



326 



THE SPIRIT IN MAN. 



teen hundred years ago, a being who presented in 
his own person all imaginable excellencies, — the 
ideal of perfect humanity embodied. Even if he 
existed only in imagination, there were men of that 
age who must have been of kindred spirit with 
what we believe him to have been, in order to 
conceive of and to describe one so far transcend- 
ing all that had been before and all that has been 
since. Can physical laws, in their unreasoning 
operation, have developed, midway in history, with- 
out any antecedent stages of progress, in a corrupt 
and degenerate age, such a being, or such a con- 
ception ? Were there no other proof or token of 
man's spiritual and God-born nature, this alone 
would suffice, — that there has been among those 
who have borne the semblance of humanity One, 
in confessing whom to be the express image of 
God the devout theist renders the highest hom- 
age that he can pay to the Being whom he adores, 
as the Supreme, the Omnipotent, the All-loving 
Father. 



Cambridge : Press of John Wilson & Son. 



Messrs. Roberts BrotJiers* Publications. 



THE CHRISTIAN IN THE WORLD. By Rev. 
D. W. Faunce. i6mo. Price $1.50. Contents: The 
Statement; The Method; Principles; The Christian in 
Prayer ; The Christian in his Recreations ; The Christian 
in his Business. 

From the Boston Cultivator. 
It will be remembered that by the will of the late Hon. Richard Fletcher 
a fund was bequeathed to Dartmouth College, from the proceeds of which should 
be offered biennially a prize of $500 for the best essay on the importance of holy 
living on the part of Christian professors, and to the author of this admirably 
written work has the prize been awarded. This earnest, practical appeal for a 
higher standard of Christian living comes fresh from the heart, and we think 
must reach the heart and bring forth fruit in the lives of those who read it. In its 
wiJe application it comes to the Christian in his business and social relations, 
his daily duties and recreations, telling him how in all these varied relations he 
can be a " Christian in the World," and a blessing to his race. 

From the Christian Era. 
But the characteristic of the work, one which will attract to it a class of 
intelligent, spiritual-minded Christians, the unorganized fraternity of the inner and 
the outer life, is its lofty, uncompromising, exhilarating idealism. It exhibits the 
perfect man in Christ, and to that picture it points with the calm earnestness ol 
conviction, though with the humility and sympathy begotten by the consciousness 
of sin and the remembrance of divers stumblings in the way of life. 

From the Syracuse Journal. 
Mr. Faunce is a clear and forcible writer, whose name is familiar to readers 
of the Baptist press, and in this essay he has most powerfully and practically 
developed his subject. He first impresses the practicability and positiveness 
of Christian duty, demanded alike from Christians and busy men in the world. 
The first five chapters are devoted to the Statement, Method, and Principles 
involved, devoting the remaining chapters to the duty of the Christian in Prayer, 
in his Recreations, and finally in his Business. The full, rich, practical suggestions 
contained in this essay, the earnest spirit which inspired it, and withal its pleasant^ 
flowing style, render it one of the most desirable of books on kindred topics, and 
we bespeak for it at least a place in every Christian library. 



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SINGERS AND SONGS OF THE LIBERAL 

FAITH ; being selections of Hymns and other Sacred 
Poems of the Liberal Church in America, with Biograph- 
ical Sketches of the Writers, and with Historical and 
Illustrative Notes. By Alfred P. Putnam. 8vo. 
Price $3.00. 

From the New York Independent. 
The service which has been done by Dr. A. P. Putnam, of Brooklyn, to those 
communions usually called Liberal, by compiling his beautiful book entitled 
" Singers and Songs of the Liberal Faith," is one not easily exaggerated. . • . 
As literature, these hymns have a high value ; but they signify most as expressions 
of religious sentiment, as devout utterances of trusting and aspiring souls. . . . 
There is, as Dr. Putnam reminds us, very little heresy in hymns. And we pity 
the bigot who could read this volume through without feeling some drawings of 
Christian fraternity toward the people whose deepest life is here so nobly 
expressed. 

From the L iheral Christian. 
It is very creditable to the editor that he has embraced so large an area and 
reaped the fruits cf fields lying as far apart as the utmost extremes of our Zion. 
We find no evidence of any partisan or school prejudices in his selections ; indeed, 
we know no work from which personal biases have been more successfully or 
creditably excluded. In this respect, Dr. Putnam's volume is a true Irenicon, 
a peacemaker; sweetly reconciling the discordant voices of denominational 
polemics, in the harmony accordant of song. We cannot doubt that the assem- 
bling of so many and such dissimilar thinkers, in one chorus of praise, is a long 
step towards a union in higher sentiments of those temporarily divided by 
intellectual diversities. 

From the Christian Union. 
The literary value of Mr. Putnam's collection is unusually high, when we' 
compare it with that of other volumes of religious poetry. To our minds the 
most convincing evidence of the existence of religious feeling among the people is 
the immense circulation of books of religious verse. We speak from actual 
knowledge when we say that certain compilations of religious poems have sold in 
greater numbers than the works of the most popular poets. These pious verses 
have, as a rule, been entirely devoid of poetic expression or sentiment, but their 
subjects have reconciled readers to all literary defects. Admirable as is the spirit 
which accepts such books, we cannot help believing it would be improved and 
elevated if the same thoughts were presented in language more poetic ; for* 
spirituality is, practically, the poetry of devotion. We hope, therefore, that Dr* 
Putnam's book will be largely bought and read. 



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MESSES. BOBEKTS BKOTHEKS' PUBLICATIONS. 



Heaven our Home. 

WE HAVE NO SAVIOUR BUT JESUS, AND 
NO HOME BUT HEAVEN 

Crown 8vo. Cloth, extra. $1.25. 

OPINIONS OF THE ENGLISH PRESS. 

"The author of the volume before us endeavors to describe what heaven is, as 
shown by the light of reason and Scripture ; and we promise the reader many 
charming pictures of heavenly bliss, founded upon undeniable authority, and de- 
scribed with the pen of a dramatist, which cannot fail to elevate the soul as well 
as to delight the imagination. . . . Part Second proves, in a manner as beautiful 
as it is convincing, the doctrine of the recognition of friends in heaven, — a subject 
of which the author makes much, introducing many touching scenes of Scripture 
celebrities meeting in heaven and discoursing of their experience on earth. Part 
Third demonstrates the interest which those in heaven feel in earth, and proves 
with remarkable clearness that such an interest exists, not only with the Almighty 
and among the angels, but also among the spirits of departed friends. We unhes- 
itatingly give our opinion that this volume is one of the most delightful productions 
of a religious character which has appeared for some time ; and we would desire 
to see it pass into extensive circulation." — Glasgow Herald. 

" This work gives positive and social views of heaven, as a counteraction to 
the negative and unsocial aspects in which the subject is so commonly presented." 
— En°lish Churchman. 

" Amid the works proceeding from an over-teeming press, our attention has been 
arrested by the perusal of the above-named production, which, it seems, is wend- 
ing its way daily among persons of all denominations. Certainly 4 Heaven our 
Home.' whoever may be the author, is no common production." — Airdri* 
A dvertiser. 

44 In boldness of conception, startling minuteness of delineation, and originality 
of illustration, this work, by an anonymous author, exceeds any of the kind we 
have ever read." — John CP Groat Journal. " 

44 We are not in the least surprised at so many thousands of copies of this 
anonymous writer's being bought up. We seem to be listening to a voice and lan- 
guage which we never heard before. Matter comes at command ; words flow with 
unstudied ease : the pages are full of life, light, and force ; and the result is a 
stirring volume, which, while the Christian critic pronounces it free from affecta- 
tion, even the man of taste, averse to evangelical religion, would admit to be exempt 
from ' cant.' " — Lo7idoti Patriot. 

44 The name of the author of this work is strangely enough withheld ... A 
social heaven, in which there will be the most perfect recoenition, intercourse, fel- 
lowship, and bliss, is the leading idea of the book, and it is discussed in a fine, 
genial spirit." — Caledonian Mercury, 



MESSES. EOBEETS BEOTHEES' PUBLICATIONS. 



Meet for Heaven. 



A STATE OF GRACE UPON EARTH THE ONLY PREP- 
ARATION FOR A STATE OF GLORY 
IN HEAVEN. 

BY THE AUTHOR OF "HEAVEN OUR HOME." 



"This forms a fitting companion to ' Heaven our Home,' — a volume which 
has been circulated by thousands, and which has found its way into almost every 
Christian family." — Scottish Press. 

" What we shall be hereafter, — whether our glorified souls will be like unto 
our souls here, or whether an entire change in their spiritual and moral condition ^» 
will be effected after death, — these are questions which occupy our thoughts, and 
to these the author has principally addressed himself." — Cambridge University 
Chronicle- 

" The author, in his or her former work, 1 Heaven our Home,' portrayed a 
social heaven, where scattered families meet at last in loving intercourse and in 
possession of perfect recognition, to spend a never-ending eternity of peace and 
love. In the present work the individual state of the children of God is attempted 
to be unfolded, and, more especially, the state of probation which is set apart for 
them on earth to fit and prepare erring mortals for the society of the saints. . . . 
The work, as a whole, displays an originality of conception, a flow of language, 
and a closeness of reasoning, rarely found in religious publications . . . The 
author combats the pleasing and generally accepted belief that death will effect 
an entire change of the spiritual condition of our souls, and that all who enter into 
bliss will be placed on a common level." — Glasgow Herald. 

" A careful perusal of this book will make it a less easy thing for a man to cheat 
himself into the notion that death will effect, not a mere transition and improve- 
ment, but an entire change in his moral and spiritual state- The dangerous nature 
of this delusion is exhibited with great power by the author of 4 Meet for Heaven.'" 
— Stirling Observer. 

"This, like the former volume, ' Heaven our Home,' by the same anonymous 
author, is a very remarkable book. Often as the subject has been handled, both 
by ancient and modern divines, it has never been touched with a bolder or a more 
masterly hand." — John O' Groat Journal. 



2'HERE, FAITH IS CHANGED INTO SIGHT, AND HOPB 
IS PASSED INTO BLISSFUL FRUITION. 

A New Work by the Author of " Heaven our Home " and 
"Meet for Heaven." 
Crown 8vo. Cloth, extra. Price $1.25. 

This new work is a companion volume to " Heaven our Home," and 1 Meet 
for Heaven," and embraces a subject of very great interest, which has not been 
included in these volumes. 

The two works above mentioned have already attained in England the large 
sale of 100,000 copies. 



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OPINIONS OF THE ENGLISH PRESS. 




Heaven. 



MESSRS. ROBERTS BROTHERS' PUBLICATIONS. 



The To-Morrow of Death ; 

OR, 

THE FUTURE LIFE ACCORDING 
TO SCIENCE. 

By LOUIS FIGUIER. 
Translated from the French, by S. R. Crocker, x vol. x6mo. #1.7* 

From the Literary World. 
As its striking, if somewhat sensational title indicates, the book deals with the 
question of the future life, and purports to present " a complete theory of Nature, 
a true philosophy of the Universe." It is based on the ascertained facts of science 
which the author marshals in such a multitude, and with such skill, as must com- 
mand the admiration of those who dismiss his theory with a sneer. We doubt if 
the marvels of astronomy have ever had so impressive a presentation in popular 
form as they have here. . . . 

The opening chapters of the book treat of the three elements which compose 
man, — body, soul, and life. The first is not destroyed by death, but simply changes 
its form ; the last is a force, like light and heat, — a mere state of bodies ; the soul 
is indestructible and immortal. After death, according to M. Figuier, the soul be- 
comes incarnated in a new body, and makes part of a new being next superior to 
man in the scale of living existences, — the superhuman. This being lives in the 
elher which surrounds the earth and the other planets, where, endowed with senses 
and faculties like ours, infinitely improved, and many others that we know nothing 
of, he leads a life whose spiritual delights it is impossible for us to imagine. . . . 

Those who erfjoy speculations about the future life will find in this book fresh and 
pleasant food for their imaginations ; and, to those who delight in the revelations 
of science as to the mysteries that obscure the origin and the destiny of man, these 
pages offer a gallery of novel and really marvellous views. We may, perhaps, ex- 
press our opinion of " The To-Morrow of Death " at once comprehensively and 
concisely, by saying that to every mind that welcomes light on these grave ques- 
tions, from whatever quarter and in whatever shape it may come, regardless oi 
precedents and authorities, this work will yield exquisite pleasure. It will shock 
tome readers, and amaze many ; but it will fascinate and impress all. 



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LAOCOON. An Essay upon the Limits of Painting 
and Poetry. With remarks illustrative of various points 
in the History of Ancient Art. By Gotthold Ephraim 
Lessing. Translated by Ellen Frothingham. i6mo. 
Price $1.50. 

In reference to this work, we can give our readers no better proof of its merit 
than by quoting the words of an English critic uttered many years ago: "The 
author of the ' Laocoon' was perhaps the greatest critic of modern times. The 
object of this celebrated work is to show that the isolation of the several fine arts 
from each other is essential to their perfection, and that their common aim is the 
production of beauty. The peculiar province of poetry is proved to be entirely dis- 
tinct both from that of morality and of philosophy; being limited, strictly speaking, 
to the exhibition of ideal actions. These views, in which Lessing differed widely 
from Klopstock, who made moral beauty, and also from Wieland, who considered 
nature and truth, as the great aim of poetry, but in which he agreed with Aristotle, 
and was closely followed in their assthetical theories by Goethe, Schiller, and Hum- 
boldt, were enforced with great argumentative power, extraordinary purity and 
correctness of taste, and with rich and pertinent illustrations from the art and 
literature of Greece." 

From the Bostojt Transcript. 

It is a matter for real congratulation that Messrs. Roberts Brothers have given 
us the " Laocoon" of Lessing in a form accessible to readers ignorant of German. 
Miss Frothingham has evidently done her work of translation as a labor of love. 
Her rendering is at once accurate, and in pure, flowing English ; an achievement 
very difficult to accomplish where the whole grammatical structure of two languages 
differs so widely. It is also a feature of great value toward the general usefulness 
of the book that she has appended translations of the many passages from Latin 
and Greek authors through which Lessing illustrates his argument. 

The growing interest in our country in questions of art and criticism ought to 
secure for this work a wide class of readers. No thoughtful person ever forgets 
the outburst of enthusiasm its first reading awakened in him. Even Goethe said 
of it that in the confused period of his own youth it cleared up the whole heavens 
to him and made his path plain before him. As an offset to such books as those 
of Ruskin, marvellously rich and suggestive, but full of subjective caprice and dog- 
matism, it teaches invaluable lessons of method. Lessing was a legislator in the 
domain of criticism. His insight was so nearly unerring-, and his knowledge so 
vast and accurate, that his verdicts stand like those of a Mansfield or Marshall in 
the courts of law. 

. . . The book must be read and re-read. It created an epoch in art criticism 
wh^n it first appeared, and its lessons are as fresh and weighty to-day as ever. On 
every page great principles are developed which help one to an ever deeper appre- 
ciation of the works of the great masters in art and literature. 



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ENGLISH LESSONS FOR ENGLISH PEOPLE. 
By Rev. E. A. Abbott, M.A., and Prof. J. R. Seeley, 
M. A. Part I. — Vocabulary. Part 1 1. — Diction. Part 
III. — Metre. Part IV. — Hints on Selection and Ar- 
rangement. Appendix. i6mo. Price $1.50. 

From the London Athenceum* 
The object of this book is evidently a practical one. It is intended for ordinary 
use by a large circle of readers ; and though designed principally for boys, may be 
read with advantage by many of more advanced years. One of the lessons which 
it professes to teach, " to use the right word in the right place," is one which no 
one should despise. The accomplishment is a rare one, and many of the hints 
here given are truly admirable. 

From the Southern Review. 

The study of Language can never be exhausted. Every time it is looked at by 
a man of real ability and culture, some new phase starts into view. The origin 
of Language; its relations to the mind; its history; its laws; its development ; 
its struggles ; its triumphs ; its devices ; its puzzles ; its ethics, — every thing 
about it is full of interest. 

Here is a delightful book, by two men of recognized authority, — the head 
Master of London School, and the Professor of Modern History in the University 
of Cambridge, the notable author of " Ecce Homo." The book is so compre- 
hensive in its scope that it seems almost miscellaneous. It treats of the vocabulary 
of the English Language ; Diction as appropriate to this or that sort of compo- 
sition ; selection and arguments of topics ; Metre, and an Appendix on Logic. 
All this in less than three hundred pages. Within this space so many subjects 
cannot be treated exhaustively ; and no one is, unless we may except Metre, to 
which about eighty pages are devoted, and about which all seems to be said that 
is worth saying, — possibly more. But on each topic some of the best things are 
said in a very stimulating way. The student will desire to study more thoroughly 
the subject into which such pleasant openings are here given ; and the best pre- 
pared teacher will be thankful for the number of striking illustrations gathered up 
to his hand. 

The abundance and freshness of the quotations makes the volume very attrac- 
tive reading, without reference to its didactic value. 



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Woman in American Society 

By ABBA GOOLD WOOLSON. 
Price $1.50. 



Extract from a letter by Wm. Lloyd Garrison. 
I am so pleased with what you have written, not only as a specimen of admirable 
English composition, bat for its rare good sense, its excellent and much needed 
advice, its delicate satire, its clear perception of what belongs to true woman- 
hood, and its vigorous treatment of the various topics described from " The 
Scnool Girl " to " The Queen of Home," that I cannot withhold an expression of 
my respect for your talents and high appreciation of the service you have rendered 
your sex. 

Extract from a letter from Geo. S. Hillard. 
I think them excellent, combining sound sense with feminine delicacy of 
observation. 

G. B. E. in Boston Transcript. 
Here is a powerful plea foi a higher and more complete education for women , 
for an education which shall develop her powers of mind and of body, more justly and 
more thoroughly, and fit her for taking in society the high position for which God 
has created her. This book ought to be in the hands of every girl who desires to 
live a healthy, happy life, and of every mother who would have her daughter 
prepared for such a life. 

From the Christian Register. 

This is a thoroughly good book, — good in style, good in thought, good in its 
practical purpose, its shrewd sense, its exquisite humor, its delicate sarcasm, its 
honesty, and its earnestness. Every one of its twenty essays touches some social 
failing and hints some useful improvement. 

The criticism, sharp and frank as it is, is never malicious or cynical. There is 
no pedantry, though the author is evidently expert in lore both ancient and mod- 
ern ; no sickly sentiment, and, what is rare in a lady's book, no poetical quotation. 

The longest chapter in the book, and, as a piece of description, the finest, is 
the nineteenth, on " Grandmothers' Houses." This is painting from the life, and 
with a minuteness and finish worthy of the most accomplished of the Dutch or 
Flemish masters. Whittier's " Snow-Bound" is not more complete in its kind. 

From the Boston Globe. 

It consists of twenty short, sensible, witty, and vigorous essays, directed chiefly 
against the follies of th<* sex. 

From the Boston Journal. 

She writes so keenly at times as to suggest comparison with the author of the 
" Saturday Review" papers on woman ; with this marked difference, that, while the 
criticisms, of the latter are bitter and unsparing, those of Mrs. Woolson, however 
sincere, evince always the generous purpose which underlies them, and show the 
author's appreciation of woman's real worth and the opportunities within her 
reach. 

Frotn the Boston Saturday Evening Gazette- 
There is that in it that needed to be said, and had not been said before, in any 
writing thai had come under our observation, so well as she has expressed it 
here. 



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THE LAYMAN'S BREVIARY. A Selection for Every 
Day in the Year. Translated from the German of Leopold Schefeb, 
by Charles T. Brooks. In one square 16mo. volume, bevelled cloth, 
gilt edges. Price, $ 2.50. A cheaper edition. Price, $ 1.50. 

'The 'Layman's Breviary' will adorn drawing-room centre- tables^ 
boudoirs, library nooks ; it will be a favorite travelling companion, ana 
be carried on summer excursions to read under trees and on verandas. 
For every day of the year there are thoughts, counsels, aspirations — ma- 
ny of them Oriental in tone, or patriarchal in spirit; there are delineations 
of nature, pure utterances of faith ; each page contains fresh and earnest 
expressions of a poetic, believing, humane soul — often clad in exquisite 
language. It is eminently a household book, and one to be taken up and 
enjoyed at intervals." — Boston Transcript. 

" Each poem is in itself a sermon ; not of dry, theological dogmas, but 
the love and care of the Infinite, the yearning and outreaching of the hu- 
man to grasp the divine. It is a book not to be lightly read and carelessly 
tossed aside, but to be studied daily until the lessons it conveys ar« 
learned, and its comforting words written on every heart. Of the au- 
thor's religious opinions we know nothing ; what creed he subscriber to 
we cannot tell ; but we do know that he is a true worshipper of God. and 
lover of his fellow-men. This book should be on every table; all house- 
holds should possess it; we cannot too highly recommend it to the notice 
of all. It has been truly said, that 'these blooming pictures of Nature, 
praising the love, the goodness, the wisdom of the Creator and His work, 
form in truth a poetical book of devotion for the layman whom the dogma 
does not satisfy — a breviary for man/ " — The Wide World. 



MY PRISONS. Memoirs of Silvio Pellico. With an 
Introduction by Epes Sargent, and embellished with fifty Illustra- 
tions from drawings by Billings. One square 12mo. volume, bevelled 
cloth, gilt edges. Price, $ 3.50. A cheaper edition. Price, $ 1.75. 

" Some thirty-five years ago the publication of" My Prisons, Memoirs of 
Silvio Pellico," first appealed to the sympathies of the Italian peopie. 
The history of a martyr to freedom is always entertaining, and the pathos 
and beauty which surround the narrative in question have always kept 
alive the interest of all intelligent nations. It ranks, therefore, deservedly 
high in biographical literature. The present edition is a very superior one, 
and is introduced by Epes Sargent, who vigorously reviews the despotism 
of Austria in the incarceration of Pellico, and the changes which hava 
dince occurred in European politics." — Chicago Evening Journal. 

" The story is simply told, for adventures like those of the author need 
no graces of style or highly wrought figures. The book has a charm 
which few novels possess; indeed, one can hardly believe that it is true, 
and that so few years have passed since men of noble birth and fine cul j 
ture were condemned to suffer for years in prison on account of their po- 
litical opinions." — Boston Transcript. 



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THE PRIMEVAL WORLD OF HEBREW TRA- 
DITION. By Frederic Henry Hedge, D.D., Author oi 
" Reason in Religion." One volume, lGmo. Price $1.50. 

From tlie New York Tribune. 
Mr. Hedge may be called an eclectic: not as one who picks from dif- 
ferent systems the detached bits that suit him, and then joins them skilfully 
together; but as one who, committing himself unreservedly to neither sys- 
tem, endeavors by independent and cultivated insight to get at the deepest 
truth contained in formulas, creeds, and institutions. His faith is wholly 
In reason : he will prove all things, and hold fast only what is good ; but 
his crucibles are various in size and quality, his tests are of many kinds, 
and his reason combines the action of as many intellectual faculties as he 
can bring into play His faith is planted in a tirm but gracious Theism, 
moral like that of Muses, and loving like that of Christ. The belief in a 
divine origin, education, guidance, and discipline of the world, runs through 
his pages; and a conviction of the moral capabilities and of the spiritual 
destination of man shines in his argument and ennobles the conclusion. 
Those who do not agree with the book need not be offended by it; and they 
who do agree with it will be charmed by the beauty in which what they 
regard as truth is converted. 

From the London (Eng.) Enquirer. 
We have been unable to criticise because we find ourselves throughout 
in entire sympathy and agreement with the writer. We cordially commend 
Dr. Hedge's book as the best solution we have ever seen of the difficult 
problems connected with the primeval Scripture record, and as an admi- 
rable illustration of the spirit of reverent constructive criticism. Such a 
work as this is aim ist like a new revelation of the divine worth of the 
ancient Hebrew Traditions, and their permanent relation to the higher 
thought and progress of the world. 

AMERICAN RELIGION. By John Weiss. One 

volume, 16mo. Cloth. Price $1.50. 

From tlie Philadelphia Press. 

Himself a clergyman, Mr. Weiss writes understanding^ upon a very 
solemn theme. His closing chapter, entitled " The American Soldier," ii 
one cf the noblest and truest tributes to the patriots of 1861-65 ever put into 
print. 

From the Chicago Tribune. 
Mr. Weiss has presented to the public a scheme for an American religion 
which, it is almost needless to say, is a religion of the intellect adapted to 
the highest form of American culture, and not pervaded to any great degree 
with spirituality, as the term is understood among orthodox believers. 

... If Mr. Weiss had christened his scheme " American Morality," we 
would gladly have hailed his discovery. As it is, we cannot but commend 
its loftiness of purpose. It is a work full of noble thought, and, however 
much the reader may disagree with it from a religious point of view, there 
are very few who can fail to be struck with its purity of aim and its healthy 
moral tone; while the merely literary reader will derive equal gratification 
from the scholarly style and the richness of illustration and research it dis- 

Elays. The last chapter but one, " Constancy to an Ideal," is one of the 
nest and noblest essays ever written by an American, and deserves to be 
read and heeded by every American. 

Sold everywhere. Mailed, postpaid, by the Publishers, 

ROBERTS BROTHERS, Boston 



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